Headline of the Week

The Huffington Post: Big Bank Profits Spark Rally in Cocaine, Hookers Sectors/10.15.09

Borowitz rules.

Listening Post

It's a cold and generally crappy morning in D.C. -- where I happen to be at the moment -- so with that in mind, here's an incredibly cool, black-as-night song from Low.

This is Monkey.

The Old In-Out In-Out

Just a note from the management: Obviously you've noticed by now that I've been posting only on-and-off over the past several days.

Sorry, but the reality is that I'm pretty busy right now and that means productivity around here suffers. I'll still be putting up a couple of things here and there most days, but you can expect my current scarcity to last at least through the middle of next week.

Thanks for continuing to stop by, though. You guys rule.

(About the picture: I Google image searched "While You Were Out" and look what I got. Needless to say, Lindsay Lohan in a bikini has nothing to do with why I've been so busy lately -- and in particular the title of this post, which is a reference to what Alex called sex in A Clockwork Orange, is in no way meant to suggest that I'm currently fucking Lindsay Lohan. Although if you want to believe that, I'm cool with it.)

Reason We Love The Daily Show #1,309: The Complete Evisceration of CNN

Listening Post

Is there anything more majestic than Jeff Lynne's 1970s white guy 'fro?

No, my friends -- I don't think there is.

Here's ELO's Mr. Blue Sky.

Language Barrier

Cesca gave this a mention, and while I'll go a little softer on it than he did (he called it possibly the most ridiculous story of the year; dear God, imagine what that would entail at this point) there's no denying that it's damn silly, especially coming from the Politico -- which constantly alternates between being very smart and painfully dumb.

The topic: Does the Obama administration use too much profanity?

Now anyone who's come to this site -- like, ever -- knows where I stand on the use of foul language. I'm an adult. I talk like one. I swear quite a bit and don't really give a damn whether you like it or not. If you're offended by somebody using grown-up words then it might be time to head over to Fisher-Price's "My First Political and Media Blog" and let your tender sensibilities get the soothing massage they apparently require. I've never believed that somehow a very serious argument can be rendered null and void by the fact that the person arguing it occasionally feels the need to make his or her point crystal fucking clear by saying things like "crystal fucking clear."

Speaking of which, Cesca makes the terrific point that what separates the Obama administration from, say, the Bush or Reagan administrations on the subject of profanity is that guys like Rahm Emanuel never pretended to be the personification of some Norman Rockwellian vision of America. Obama and his staff don't drop the name of their Lord and Savior every five minutes and pretend that how they behave in public is how they behave in private. In other words, they're not hypocritical about the fact that, yeah, they swear on occasion; the same way millions of Americans do; the ones not convinced that at the end of their lives Jesus will run down a tally of all the times they used a four-letter word and cast them into eternal damnation for it.

They're just words, people. Get the hell over it.

The Politico: What's With All the @#%! Language?/10.12.09

Right Here

An interesting, although not the least bit shocking, quote buried in a story in the Sunday New York Times on Fox News's intensifying public battle with Barack Obama:

"Certainly, Fox continues to aggressively bolster its on-air talent, most recently with the hiring of John Stossel, the libertarian investigative journalist from ABC News, for its spin-off channel, Fox Business. The business channel is also keen on another administration critic, Lou Dobbs, who met for dinner with Mr. Ailes last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the meeting."

Dobbs at Fox? Is there anyone out there who doesn't see this as the obvious fulfillment of some kind of demagogic destiny?

Last month I cranked out a quickie piece on Stossel's decision to make the right turn toward Fox and this morning I'm bringing it back because with the acquisition of Dobbs -- if it in fact does end up happening -- Fox News's idealogical purity would be nearly complete and all but unquestionable.

And believe it or not, in the big picture that's very bad news for viewers.

"Across the Great Divide" (Originally Published, 9.10.09)

Well, here's the least surprising media-centric news item ever: John Stossel is leaving ABC for Fox News Channel.

For the uninitiated, Stossel is a multi-Emmy-winning investigative reporter with an amusing Harry Reems moustache. He calls himself a libertarian -- a designation which these days, unfortunately, is almost exclusively the property of the right -- and has spent the past several years doing his best to debunk manmade global climate change, bolster the notion of the wonders of unfettered greed and the ultimate good of the free market, and assail anyone who complains about the current health care model. His slot on 20/20 has been little more than his own personal Hyde Park-style soapbox ever since his conversion from serious journalist to silly dogmatic populist.

Stossel's been a regular guest on Fox for some time now; he generally appears as an analyst (which at Fox is code for someone who has even less obligation to the truth than the correspondents in the general assignment pool). Given his tendency to egomaniacally showboat, his departure probably isn't much of a loss to ABC. But it does underscore in no uncertain terms just where the business of journalism is heading: Hume, Beck, now Stossel -- they all skew hard to the right and they've all wound up at Fox. At this point, Fox is the bright light on the porch that attracts all the insects. The problem is that what we're witnessing is the homogenization of the news media. It was admittedly inevitable. With so many choices out there, narrowcasting was always the future. But the fewer dissenting opinions at each outlet -- with Fox essentially saying, "If you're a conservative, this is where you belong" -- the viewers, readers, and people simply looking for a well-balanced vision of the world will suffer.

Then again, the battle lines are so clearly drawn these days, with people believing only what they want to believe and refusing to hear any evidence to the contrary, that it probably doesn't make any difference anyway. For God's sake, last night a congressman stood up and shouted that the president is a liar (a lie itself, at least insofar as what that congressman was protesting at the time). The damage is done, and we may never reach a point again where this country's various political factions listen to each other without prejudice, let alone treat each other with respect.

The people who like what Stossel has to say are already waiting for him at Fox.

Welcome home, John.