Posted 6/7/2003 11:45:28 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT: One of the great "midnight movies" of the 1970s, and a terrific documentary about The Who, is coming to DVD sometime this year. No release date listed on its official Website, other than "coming in 2003", but it sounds like a massive restoration project. Between the Beatles' Anthology, Standing in the Shadows of Motown, the new Led Zeppelin DVD, and now this, 2003 has been a great year for rock DVDs. Now if we could just get the Beatles' Let It Be on DVD. It's scheduled to be released this fall--hopefully with lots of outtakes and bonus materials, to help make the disintegration of the Beatles less painful to watch.

Posted 6/6/2003 06:03:55 PM by Edward Driscoll
JOHN PODHORETZ WRITES that the real problem with The Times isn't the Jayson Blair and Rick Bragg scandals. "The problem with the Times is that it's become a left-wing sheet. And a cowardly one at that. It has been hiding its increasingly arrogant agenda behind its century-old reputation as the Newspaper of Record:

I've worked for two newspapers - this one and the Washington Times. One of the primary qualities that has distinguished these two papers from most others in the country is that they do not pretend to be something they're not. They are run by conservatives. Readers know it, and are given the opportunity to read them and judge for themselves whether the information in them is improperly colored by the ideological views of the owners and managers. In the world of professional journalists, this lack of pretense is considered a black mark against these institutions. They are criticized and held in lesser regard precisely because they have the integrity to be honest with their readers about what they are. Howell Raines, back when he was Washington bureau chief of The New York Times, refused to acknowledge that the Washington Times was even a newspaper. He called it a "journalistic entity" - which, I have to say, is far more than he is right now.

Ouch. Podhoretz adds that "Pinch" Sulzberger "believes The New York Times is a country unto itself, for which profound sacrifices must be made. His ludicrously inflated notion of what is, after all, his own family business almost guarantees that the resignations of Raines and Boyd won't mark the end of the paper's Age of Solipsistic Scandal." Exactly.

Posted 6/6/2003 04:12:00 PM by Edward Driscoll
SORRY FOR THE LACK OF POSTING: Working on a couple of long-form articles for the 'Net.

Posted 6/6/2003 04:07:24 PM by Edward Driscoll
GRIESE IS THE WORD: Brian Griese agreed to two-year contract with the Miami Dolphins, the team that his father once led at quarterback.

Posted 6/5/2003 05:39:07 PM by Edward Driscoll
"I LEAD A NORMAL LIFE": The Arab News writes about Saudi Arabia’s leading executioner Muhammad Saad Al-Beshi, who beheads "up to seven people in a day", but nonetheless says, "I Lead a Normal Life". So let me get this straight--Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins make Dead Man Walking, but turn a blind eye at a system that allows men like Al-Beshi to flourish. Meanwhile, Hollywood cranks out pro-gay films and TV series, such as The Birdcage, and Will and Grace, but has no problem befriending Fidel Castro or Yassar Arafat, who lead regimes that routinely arrest, torture and kill gays without batting an eye. "Beam up, Scotty", as one colorful ex-Congressman used to say! (Link found via James Taranto's "Best of the Web Today", who writes, "Hey, It's a Living".)

Posted 6/5/2003 04:08:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
ASHCROFT ATTEMPTS A MOST UNUSUAL POWER GRAB, according to Scott Ott, writing from the Hall of Justice. (Or is it the Batcave?)

Posted 6/5/2003 04:05:07 PM by Edward Driscoll
"WE ARE ALL BULLWORTHS NOW": Reason has a surprising look at race in the movies and on TV.

Posted 6/5/2003 02:06:41 PM by Edward Driscoll
GEE, SHALL I GIVE MONICA A SHOWER? Would Monica mind if we have cigars inside her? I'll bet five or six men could fit in Monica, if they squeeze really tight! Long before we met, my wife has owned an '87 Toyota Land Cruiser. It's built like a tank, and a true workhorse. And it now has a new name...

Posted 6/5/2003 01:40:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
MICKEY KAUS checks in on Raines and Bowd's resignations, as he pronounces his patented Howell-O-Meter RIP after only one use:

Quick thoughts: 1) It's not as if the NYT is going to stop being a liberal paper. But maybe the Times' annoying tendency to unashamedly equate Upper West Side liberal sentiments with "objective" reporting ("Call It journalism," as Boyd said of theTimes' embarrassing Augusta crusade) will temporarily abate. It always seemed to me, however, that the trend became apparent under the editorship of Joseph Lelyveld, who has now been brought back as interim editor. 2) If this had happened 10 years ago, when the Internet didn't exist, Raines would still be running the place. The Times staff would be just as unhappy, but they'd be unable to instantaneously organize and vent their displeasure on Romenesko and elsewhere. It was this suddenly-transparent internal opposition, more than the constant pummeling from bloggers, that brought Raines down.

He's very likely right on that last bit, although Glenn and especially Andrew's work certainly may have sped the process up.

Posted 6/5/2003 12:14:36 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE MONEY QUOTE: Dick Morris on Hillary Clinton on National Review Online:

The fact is that Hillary and Bill have had a relationship based on a sick cycle of accusation-denial-admission-reward for decades. He is accused of an affair. He denies it. He admits it when he has no choice. Hillary forgives him and then Bill showers gifts upon her in gratitude. For putting up with Gennifer Flowers and going on 60 Minutes to "stand by her man," she got control of health-care policy. For Monica, she got a Senate seat. Some guys give necklaces, some give Senate seats.

Those curses and mutterings you're hearing are from the seemingly 57 Democratic presidential candidates, obsessing how once again, the Clintons have sucked the oxygen out of the room, and deflected attention away from them, and whatever message they each have.

Posted 6/5/2003 12:09:39 PM by Edward Driscoll
KEY QUESTION ABOUT THE TIMES: What does the Moose think about all of this?

Posted 6/5/2003 11:25:53 AM by Edward Driscoll
CHANGING TIMES: Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd have resigned from the New York Times. InstaPundit and Drudge have regular updates. Andrew Sullivan (who's owned this story from the start), should also have lots of coverage. Given what we know about "Pinch" Sulzberger, it's hard for me to see that much hope for the Times, at least in the short-term. Hopefully though, they'll morph into something closer than the Washington Post, biased to left, but generally well respected. UPDATE: More on "Pinch", via The Weekly Standard.

Posted 6/4/2003 07:26:37 PM by Edward Driscoll
WMDS FOUND IN IRAQ (AGAIN): "Banned missile programme found in Iraq: report".

Posted 6/4/2003 07:13:45 PM by Edward Driscoll
SUMMER READING LIST: Need a book to take the beach? Orrin Judd (not surprisingly) has some suggestions.

Posted 6/4/2003 05:38:05 PM by Edward Driscoll
DO THE WRONG THING: Spike Lee sues Viacom, over the new name for TNN, "Spike". If Spike wins, then I am going to be all over Universal for EdTV. (But I'm not holding breath. On the other hand, I doubt the new Spike network will be running She's Gotta Have It or Do The Right Thing any time soon.)

Posted 6/4/2003 05:26:08 PM by Edward Driscoll
ADVANTAGE, DASCHLE! Well, sort of. There's finally some sensible environmental legislation. AP reports that "New government rules effective Wednesday no longer require environmental studies before trees are logged or burned to prevent forest fires. The rules also limit appeals of such projects." It will be fun watching the environmental left condemn this, since the rules basically echo the same legislation that Tom Daschle quietly slipped into a spending bill last year to exempt his home state of South Dakota, back when he was Senate majority leader.

Posted 6/4/2003 04:49:47 PM by Edward Driscoll
ADVANTAGE ED! Back on July 29th 2002, I predicted that one day, the Dow would hit 9000. People laughed at me (just as they laughed at great men like Bob Hope), but finally, less than a year later I was proven right. Which just goes to show that some dreams do eventually come true. (Oh wait--you mean its high was almost 12,000? Nevermind...) Seriously--it's nice to see the Dow (and the Nasdaq) starting to creep upward again.

Posted 6/4/2003 01:40:35 AM by Edward Driscoll
ROBOT RIVALS: If you get the DIY Channel, and have seen their "Robot Rivals" TV series, I have an interview with its producer, host, and other people involved in the show in the latest issue of Nuts and Volts magazine. Wake the kids, feed 'em with diet pills, and go out and buy a few hundred copies at your local store!

Posted 6/4/2003 01:01:58 AM by Edward Driscoll
SHOPTALK: Paul Greenberg nails (a few of) the Times' problems in its post-"L'affaire Blair" blues.

Posted 6/4/2003 12:48:10 AM by Edward Driscoll
NIXON IN JULY 1974: Andrew Sullivan and Slate's Jack Shafer argue that Howell Raines is as toxic as Richard Nixon was just before Nixon's resignation--and the clock is ticking, as Sullivan writes.

Posted 6/3/2003 11:11:41 PM by Edward Driscoll
SNAPSHOTS OF A ECO-HYPOCRITE: Of Barbra Streisand, Michelle Malkin writes:

People who live in 10,000-square-foot oceanfront mansions shouldn't throw stones. That hasn't stopped Barbra Streisand from lecturing her fellow Californians about their energy use ("We must make concrete changes in our lifestyles to help solve this energy crisis . . . try to line dry (clothes) . . . only run your dishwasher when it is fully loaded . . . ") and lambasting President Bush's environmental policies ("Bush has discouraged energy conservation every step of the way -- suing California for passing a law requiring more fuel-efficient vehicles and even proposing a tax cut for SUV owners!"). Now, this multiple home-owning, custom-built SUV-riding, California coastline-hogging diva has lobbed a $50 million lawsuit at an eco-activist who posted photos of her massive estate on the Internet. Malibu Babs says the litigation is about protecting her privacy. She claims that the aerial pictures, posted on www.californiacoastline.org by Kenneth Adelman, violate anti-paparazzi laws and "provide a roadmap into her residence." But Adelman's site does not list Streisand's address, nor do the photos contain the star's image. Adelman and his wife are wealthy environmental do-gooder types who created a Web site to document erosion along the California coastline for scientists and land-use researchers. The photos of Streisand's home are just a few among the 12,000 in his online archive. "He's not doing this for profit, or stalking anyone," Adelman's lawyer Richard Kendall told the Los Angeles Times. "He is engaged in a public-interest effort to document the entire coast to preserve it from degradation. He's not about to carve out exceptions for celebrities who don't want to be identified as owning coastal land." Moreover, as the editors of The Smoking Gun Web site, which has posted Streisand's lawsuit filed under seal last week, point out, maps and images documenting the location of the entertainer's property are publicly available elsewhere on the Web sites of Mapquest, the Los Angeles Office of the Assessor, and the U.S. Geological Survey. Streisand has yet to sue them.

Hey, the year isn't over yet.

Posted 6/3/2003 08:10:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
WOODY ALLEN GETS PATRIOTIC, well, for France that is. Peter Schramm has the details, and some thoughts. (Link found via Orrin Judd, who writes, "Their first choice was Noah Cross." Heh. Incidentally, as Michael Graham wrote in Redneck Nation, I used to love Woody Allen, "until he went southern and started sleeping with his children."

Posted 6/3/2003 07:22:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHO'S FUDGING THE BUDGET? Brent Bozell looks at four different ways the media has distorted President Bush's tax cut.

Posted 6/3/2003 07:19:36 PM by Edward Driscoll
WE ARE ALL MADE OF STARS: Robert Alt quotes Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic candidate for the White House, who sounds like he left his heart at Woodstock. Alt writes, "Suddenly, his stance in favor of legalized medical marijuana makes perfect sense." Stay by the phone Jerry--Kucinich may need a running mate!

Posted 6/3/2003 05:12:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
UNVEILED: Sultaana Freeman (formerly Sandra Keller) is the woman who is trying to sue the state of Florida to allow them to photograph her wearing a full Muslim headdress for her driver's license. Want to see what she looks like under her veil? The Smoking Gun has a her photo...from her 1999 conviction for battering a foster child, which she pleaded guilty to. (Maybe the Florida DMV should simply print that photo on her driver's license.

Posted 6/3/2003 01:53:57 PM by Edward Driscoll
CLASS AND THE LEFT: Fascinating article titled "A Liberal Trademark", by Frederick Turner in Tech Central Station:

Over the years all the real arguments for the left-liberal position, involving evidence and rational deliberation, have been exploded one by one. Thus rational discussion itself has become a sign of bad taste, of a pugnacious Appalachian kind of insensitivity, with a hint of a possible tendency to tobacco chewing, gun racks, talk radio, pickup trucks, wife-beaters and incest. There is left but one simple rule for the new upper crust: by all means prefer victims to oppressors, but always prefer oppressors to true liberators. The class rationale for this odd paradox is complex. Karl Marx was right when he identified the phenomenon of a class having policies even when none of its members would necessarily recognize them - and the people I am talking about here are eminently nice, even good people, who would be horrified by the class motives they serve. But here it is: their class privileges are preserved by means of the continued existence and allegiance of a peon caste who will vote for the upper crust's leaders at home, and confuse and frustrate the great class enemy, the U.S. military, abroad. (If you want to "shock and awe" one of these folks, just mention that your son is in the Army. The look of horror is instantaneous, though it vanishes quickly.) True liberators, as we can now see, would deprive the world of victims, and thus dry up the supply of peons that constitute the new class's constituency. This is why, even though the new class disliked Saddam Hussein, they hate Bush infinitely more. Just as Palestinian refugee camps justify the failures and secure the tenure of Arab despots, so the poor and downtrodden of the world justify the ascendancy of the new upper crust. At home, school vouchers are opposed in the teeth of the urban poor that want them, because decent education might help put an end to the urban poor who vote for upper crust leaders. The same goes for the inclusion of privatization in the Social Security portfolio, and any form of tax relief that might result in turning the majority of Americans into owners, and into people too proud to consider themselves victims. And without victims, where would Lady Bountiful be then? If one has had the privileges - or aspires to them - of a "liberal" education in the post-1960s academy, the privileges of "set" and caste, one subconsciously doubts whether one's own talents would sustain one if one were cast out. One's unexamined intellectual premises have an unsound feel to them, so that one doesn't want to "go there." It's not what you know, but who you know, so the greatest terror is to be shunned by the in-group. And this is where the fear comes from. In this light it seems rather amazing that, as I and others have begun to notice, so many people are coming out of the closet and daring to ask why the emperor is wearing no clothes. Has the courageous spirit of our young men and women warriors started to revitalize the intellectual kidney of the home country? What is going on here?

Read the whole thing. And for more takes on this issue, see David Brooks' Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, and several of the essays in Tom Wolfe's recent Hooking Up.

Posted 6/3/2003 01:08:38 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE JOY OF AUCTIONS: For a mere $4.5 mil, you too can have your own aircraft carrier. For another $19K, you can own a couple of hijacked Cuban aircraft to land on them! My God, what hath eBay wrought??

Posted 6/3/2003 12:59:36 PM by Edward Driscoll
CAN BILL MOYERS be an anchor and a funder? After reading Stephen F. Hayes' recent Weekly Standard piece, Tim Graham has some thoughts.

Posted 6/3/2003 11:37:49 AM by Edward Driscoll
BABES WITH FLAMETHROWERS: What can I say, I'm a sucker for the simple things in life. (Makes a nice double-feature with The Swedish Bikini Team, incidentally.)

Posted 6/3/2003 01:37:37 AM by Edward Driscoll
"DECREPIT TYRANTS" is who Congressman Tom Delay says that China is run by. He's dead-on target, but I can't help think of Michael Kinsley's famous remark that a major gaffe only occurs in Washington when someone speaks the truth. UPDATE: Scott Ott explains what really happened...

Posted 6/2/2003 11:36:31 PM by Edward Driscoll
A BOLD NEW CANDIDATE HAS ENTERED THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE, and he needs your support. Start by reading this key speech to his constituents.

Posted 6/2/2003 11:24:57 PM by Edward Driscoll
FOLLOW THE MONEY: ActivistCash.com looks at Mothers Against Drunk Driving:

If truth-in-advertising laws applied to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, its name would be changed to Mothers Against All Drinking of Any Kind. MADD’s crusade has turned into a prohibitionist movement. Instead of targeting repeat offenders and those who are truly too impaired to drive, the twenty-first-century MADD endorses policies that would target social drinkers.

Of course--because the New Puritans know what's best for the rest of us.

Posted 6/2/2003 11:05:40 PM by Edward Driscoll
"GIN SWINGS": Nick Passmore, writing in Forbes.com, explains his passion for gin, and its history:

These days, however, it seems that European nobility and movie stars have become just as swept up in the vodka craze as anyone. But I, for one, want nothing to do with it. I approve of vodka for Bloody Marys or when munching on caviar, but nothing will take the place of gin for me. Whether on a hot day sipping cool gin and tonics, or out on the town nursing a martini, gin swings.

A man after my own heart.

Posted 6/2/2003 10:52:13 PM by Edward Driscoll
RETROSPECTIVE: Eric Olsen reviews the new best of Suzanne Vega CD:

I forgot how much I love the dry, talcum powder balm that is Suzanne Vega's voice - Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera and the other junior divas could learn a thing or three about the value of underplayed expression from Vega, who conveys more meaning and feeling in an inhalation than do many over-emoters in entire careers. Vega has a new career retrospective out and it does the job very well.

I'll second that emotion, although my favorite neo-folkie moment (I think it qualifies) was Sarah McLachlan's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, one of the best produced CDs of the 1990s.

Posted 6/2/2003 09:40:05 PM by Edward Driscoll
IMMANENTIZING THE EPA: Jonathan Alder puts Christine Todd Whitman's tenure as head of the EPA in perspective, and concludes, "The EPA administrator’s resignation is not a loss but an opportunity." I'm not holding my breath waiting for things to improve there, however.

Posted 6/2/2003 09:28:22 PM by Edward Driscoll
IMMANENTIZING THE ESCHATON: Thomas Sowell compares India to the US, and concludes, "The key to the denigrators is that they do not compare the United States to other countries but to the Utopia in their imagination. Those who do this seem not to understand that it was the attempt to create political heaven in the 20th century that lead to the unprecedented hell of totalitarianism". Read the whole thing. (And then click over here if you've never heard the phrase, "immanentizing the eschaton" before!)

Posted 6/2/2003 09:13:42 PM by Edward Driscoll
FLASHBACK: Back on December 15th, 2002, I wrote:

Vietnam is doubly instructive here--it was the high-water mark of the anti-war movement, which gained traction because the US military was ineffective in Vietnam, partially due to using tactics developed 25 years earlier in World War II. (And yes, that's a gross simplification, and Robert McNamera, Westmoreland, and Johnson's rules of engagement didn't help things. But you get the idea.) But each component of the military radically changed its tactics after Vietnam. The anti-war movement is still stuck in a 30 year old timewarp. And it's got to feel strange for them, to find the military's thinking more modern than theirs.

Not coincidentally, the same holds true of the press. On April 28th, Brit Hume spoke at Hillsdale College and said:

If you go back and look at American military operations beginning with the Grenada invasion and including Panama, the Gulf War, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, and you study what U.S. military spokesmen said about how those conflicts were going at each stage, you’ll see that they were right, and that they told the truth, by and large. No doubt they made some mistakes, but there was nothing like the large deceptions and misrepresentations that made so many journalistic careers in Vietnam. The military learned its lesson in Vietnam, and it has not behaved that way since. You’d think journalists would have noticed. They haven’t, but it’s not too late: When retired General Jay Garner or his successor says that things will work out in post-war Iraq, it might be wise for Western journalists to wait more than a month to declare him wrong.

And when he's not, to not turn your backs on a nation being reconstructed.

Posted 6/2/2003 01:23:25 PM by Edward Driscoll
HOLLYWOOD ENDING: Joel Engel writes on Danny Glover's claims of McCarthyism (using the Lileksian definition of the word, incidentally), as a result of being dropped by MCI, after his pro-Castro comments:

It is a colossal irony that an actor earning two million easy bucks as a TV pitchman only and entirely because a vast swath of the American public felt affection for him, should now scream McCarthyism after he bulldozed those good feelings with comments which an even wider swath found insulting, hateful, and, yes, stupid. Like Bing, MCI has every right — in fact, as a public corporation, it may have a fiduciary obligation — to protect the company from a boycott organized by customers voting their disgust through the only method available to them. Such give and take is the bloodstream of a democracy. Inoculating anyone, even celebrities, from the consequences of their speech would only weaken the First Amendment. While it guarantees our right to make complete fools of ourselves, it doesn't guarantee good reviews. Glover and [Sean] Penn can't seem to get that. And given how relentlessly the issue keeps popping up, they probably won't unless they ask themselves how they'd expect the public to react if, say, Julia Roberts decided to endorse David Duke for president.

Exactly.

Posted 6/2/2003 12:50:51 AM by Edward Driscoll
IS TONY BLAIR ABOUT TO BE CHARGED FOR WAR CRIMES? Paul Craig Roberts, writing in the The Washington Times, says yes, and adds, "President George Bush escapes being charged as the U.S. is not a signatory to the ICC". So when is the ICC going to arrest Arafat, someone from the house of Saud, and/or a member of al Qaeda?

Posted 6/1/2003 09:53:44 PM by Edward Driscoll
FRANK TIPS FOR MEETING WITH JACQUES CHIRAC, by Frank J., who would make Drew Bundini Brown proud.

Posted 6/1/2003 09:40:41 PM by Edward Driscoll
"A COUNSEL OF DESPAIR": Andrew Sullivan on what Mickey Kaus has dubbed "bell curve liberals".

Posted 6/1/2003 07:42:03 PM by Edward Driscoll
SEAN PENN ROCKS THE ADVERTISING WORLD: Scott Ott has the details.

Posted 6/1/2003 07:04:14 PM by Edward Driscoll
NEW PURITANS WATCH: California is about to take another freedom away: soon driving with a cell phone will be illegal.

Posted 6/1/2003 06:26:37 PM by Edward Driscoll
BIAS BY OMISSION: Charles Johnson writes that "more than 100,000 marchers took part in the Salute to Israel parade on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan today", but...."There is not one word about the parade in Yahoo News. Neither the Associated Press nor Reuters apparently thought it was worth mentioning, even in passing. Nothing in the New York Times either. Five AP photographs show up at Yahoo, all but one focusing on the tiny number of anti-Israel protesters—with an especially nice shot of the twisted Neturei Karta freaks". As Johnson says, "Wow". I guess if you're not pro-terrorist, you're not worthy of coverage at the Times. UPDATE (6/2/03): Johnson writes that the Times finally got around to covering the march. But he's none-to-thrilled about their usual, pro-terrorist slant.

Posted 6/1/2003 02:59:33 PM by Edward Driscoll
HEY, MAYBE I SHOULD QUERY THESE GUYS: Jeremy Lott looks at Modern Drunkard magazine:

Readers soon learned that, though they are usually happy drunks, the staff of Modern Drunkard Magazine are dead serious about their booze. In fact, that they were denied entry to the Absolut Vodka party at this year's Bar and Nightclub Convention. Shown the door on the hilarious grounds that they were promoting drunkenness, the Drunkards retaliated by passing out hundreds of copies to people going into the melee. Though the guards tried to confiscate the issues, they finally gave up "when a growing group of hasslees started wondering why the literature they were carrying was any of Absolut's business." This orneriness -- this refusal to be cowed by convention or moderation -- is one of the things that makes this magazine so fascinating. When the Drunkards give readers tips on how to beat an intervention, or take aim at the latest anti-alcohol "propaganda," or enlist the lubricious exuberance of some of America's founders ("dedicated, rampant boozers") in the service of tying one on, they are merrily trampling on all sorts of cherished American taboos.

Given the rise of the New Puritans of the left, Modern Drunkard's timing as a counterforce looks impeccable.