Temporarily closed

My cocker spaniel, Buster, collapsed onto the kitchen floor shortly after dinner last night, and Maria and I have been going to and from the Emergency Vet in Carytown ever since. He's doing better today -- ambulatory and hungry, definitely wanting to leave and go home with us -- but he has a mass in one of his sinuses that has to be diagnosed via CAT scan on Monday, and then surgically removed.

Needless to say, as the stoplight signifies, I won't be blogging until he's relatively safe, and Maria and I aren't stressed like this.

See ya,
R

Goodbye, Rocky Mountain News

Their autobituary is here.

How long has the newspaper been imploding?

Judge for yourself. Here's a great article from the Washington Post -- published four years ago.

The author was right on target -- the only thing is, he couldn't predict that papers would all keep trying to do the same old things they've been doing for a century . . . but completely failing at them today.

The bow ties didn't get it then, and they won't get it now.

Heading for extinction.

You can send in the clowns, now! Oh, don't bother -- they're here.

The Arrogance of Newsday: Trying to Control the Internet

"We plan to end the distribution of free Web content."

That's a direct quote from Tom Rutledge, CEO of Cablevision, which owns Newsday, the newspaper that covers Long Island, NY.

Here's the whole story. It's obvious that he and the powers-that-jerk-themselves-off high in the ivory towers of Cablevision have no concept of what the Internet is, or how users regard "content providers."

Not highly.

As a friend of mine Twittered today, "Four years in new media taught me that people expect free online content. I predict Newsday will be sadly disappointed."

Deservedly so.
You think any of them will ever get it?

Out with a whimper...

The Rocky Mountain News, Denver's newspaper for the city's entire history, will shut down Friday after nearly 150 years of operation. Rich Boehne, chief executive officer of Scripps, the paper's parent company, said in a prepared statement, "The Rocky is one of America's very best examples of what local news organizations need to be in the future. Unfortunately, the partnership's business model is locked in the past."

The italics are mine, because Boehne's opinion ties in exactly with mine, as I posted yesterday in The Peter Principle is destroying our newspapers.

Here's the whole story from the Associated Press.

Network Memories

Guess what Peter Finch is saying . . .

The '70s was for me the finest era of movie making. It was as though the half century of films that had come before somehow collectively inspired a generation to work their best at their craft. M*A*S*H, the first two Godfathers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, Star Wars, Jaws and Close Encounters, Taxi Driver, Carrie, All That Jazz -- I could go on and on, and you'd recognize every single title.

One of my favorites was 1976's Network. It had a huge impact at the box office and on the audience. Even today, people still scream, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!"

It wasn't the catch phrase alone -- it was Network's sheer power up on the screen. It was satirizing the worst of 1970s television in a way that we laughed at -- it was unreal, shows like that could never happen -- yet the machinations that went on behind the scenes and in the characters lives were all too real. That's why "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!" became so popular -- it resonated through the American audience because we could all relate.

And all the shows that could never happen . . . have all happened.

Mark Evanier blogs out of Los Angeles, and in a recent post, To the Victors Go the Spoilers, he writes about how he thinks we should see new movies without listening to critics, without spoilers and comments on the Internet: ". . . the relentless promotion of some movies these days has damaged the whole film-watching experience for me."

I can't disagree with him, especially when all the funniest parts of a new comedy are given away in the trailer.

He mentions an advance screening of Network which he attended in 1976, and I think this quote from his blog shows just how much power and impact Network had. We need more writers like Paddy Chayefsky, and we need more courageous executives and studios to make movies like this again.

I saw Network at the Writers Guild Theater a good six weeks before it hit regular cinemas. The place was packed and no one knew one thing about it other than it was Paddy Chayefsky taking a shot at television. By the day it opened, half of America was screaming "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," having seen it in the promos and clips. It was a lot more effective to not know what was coming. (I was sitting next to Ray Bradbury when I saw it. When the film ended, he looked around the hall and said, "There isn't a person in this theater who isn't wishing he'd written that.")

I haven't seen Network on cable in years. But it's available on DVD, and I urge you to run out and get one of the most intelligent and insightful films ever made.

The Peter Principle is destroying our newspapers

Although newspapers across the country are playing a grand game of layoff bingo with their employees, not many of the bow ties on the upper floors are worrying about their salaries and bonuses. And they should: a new study just came out that indicates the upper echelon of many megacorpconglomeranationals are really the individuals who are incompetent.

And how could anyone disagree? The Peter Principle made the matter clear back in 1968:

In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence.

The bow ties can't go any higher, but their legacy of micromanagement and incompetence sure lives on . . . and trickles straight down to Middle Management, where it oozes out of their cubicles like pus from a boil. Derailment is the norm, where good work is ignored, kissing ass is rewarded, and managers maintain their own, petty, power-sustaining agendas in a never-ending series of turfwars.

Yes, the workplace in most metro dailies really is out of Dilbert.

Here's the email I got that explains it all in business-ese:

Leadership Risk Analysis

The flagging economy may have soul mates on your company’s executive board. According to “Leaders Without Sea Legs: Threats to Staying Afloat During Tough Times,” a new white paper from Development Dimensions International (DDI), your company’s leaders also may be its worst enemies. Here are key findings from the report, which analyzed information about the performance of 3,623 executives who participated in DDI assessment centers around the world, and some tips to take away:

• Nearly three of 10 executives (29 percent) are deficient in their ability to drive execution. In addition, two in 10 (20 percent) are strong or moderately strong candidates for derailing due to a lack of discipline. Combining the assessment and personality data (and eliminating overlaps), 43 percent of the executives are at risk of being “hit-or-miss” leaders. Thus, the report states, “there is a high threat to the organization from executives who fail to take full operational control.”

• Assessors rated only a few leaders (8 percent) in serious need of an effective executive bearing. However, another 19 percent are at a high or moderately high risk for being emotionally unpredictable under pressure.

• Some 26 percent of executives are at high or moderately high risk of derailing by remaining detached from others. There also is a moderate risk that leaders will be too downbeat to inspire a sense of optimism about the organization’s future.

• More than one-third of the sample (34 percent) have a development need in the competency of empowerment. Exacerbating this lack of skill are tendencies to micromanage (20 percent at high or moderately high risk of derailing) or poor interpersonal relations (14 percent at high or moderately high risk of derailing).

Companies can do the following to keep these undesirable leadership profiles from emerging:

• Explain and discuss the impact of derailing personality patterns on key business drivers. For example, if your business needs to identify cost controls or innovative ways to generate sales, consider the impact of a leader with an arrogant derailing tendency. If the leader acts like a know-it-all in meetings, dominates the discussion, and prevents others’ good ideas from surfacing, he or she becomes a barrier to generating effective solutions.

• Ensure leaders have a 100-day action plan that identifies their derailers and specifies the actions needed to manage those behaviors. The plan should be reinforced with processes such as time frames, required support (e.g., coaches), and measures to indicate improvement.

• Heighten self-awareness and sustain improvement in managing derailers by creating an open environment and ensuring leaders have feedback skills. “A leadership team that understands each others’ derailment tendencies and the skills and receptivity to provide feedback,” the report notes, “will be more successful avoiding situations that trigger potentially destructive behaviors and their associated business execution flaws.”

What do you do on vacation?

Wherever: Los Angeles, Nashville, San Francisco, Providence, Miami, Key West, and especially New York . . .

At some point, this is what you'll find me doing.


I am a victim of the book disease . . .

This is how I feel...

February 24, 9:00 a.m., 23.5 degrees outside. And this is how I feel . . .

It's five o'clock somewhere!

Scrabble Word of the Day

This is from Fark.com:

Dear Hasbro: if you're going to lay off people in your company, make sure it isn't the person who screens the "Word of the Day" list for your website.

Huh? Someone agrees with me about newspapers?

I have to take my politics one small dose at a time. So when I get tired of all the Republitard zombies, shambling around, mindlessly trying to retake control not only of Washington but of our individual rights -- and our wallets -- I turn to sites like Think Progress and balance everything out.

". . . BRRRRAAAAAIIIIIINNNNNNNNSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS . . ."

Think Progress's Matt Yglesias agrees with me in this news report and sound bite. Today's old-fashioned paper -- virtually unchanged for more than a hundred years -- doesn't make a lot of sense in contemporary America. No matter how much I love the newspaper, the concept is no longer sustainable:

A newspaper is something much more than a just a venue for producing hard news stories. It’s a physical bundle of paper that bundles together stories of all different kinds: weather reports, sports coverage, arts, book reviews movie reviews. And there’s a particular logic to assembling that kind of bundle, but its an economic logic that has to do with the economics of printing and distributing pieces of paper and its not a logic that really makes sense in the present world.

I, personally, try not to argue with logic.

For Buffy fans only

Somebody has taken all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and condensed the good parts into a four-minute video. Check it out here.

Another one bites the dust

The Philadelphia Journal Register. R.I.P.

Obituary is here.

Republitard Gov Refusing to Help his own State

Looks like the GOP Governor of Louisiana doesn't care about 25,000 of his constituents -- only the well-off Repubicans who might vote him into the White House in four years.

Here's the story. It's just another beautiful day in our political paradise, huh?

Cap'n Sully: Why for didn't you mention God?

I guess that Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger saved so many lives just isn't good enough for some holier-than-thous.

This is a real letter, posted online this week, that was written to the Muskegon Chronicle in Michigan.

Letter: Why didn't flight crew mention God?
by Dena Malda | Muskegon
Monday, February 16, 2009, 11:37 AM

On the Feb. 8 "60 Minutes" program, we were captivated while viewing the Katie Couric interview of the crew and passengers of Flight 1549.

However, we were struck there was not one mention of God, who directs pilots of planes and secures the safety of passengers.

We have written CBS and asked them for more realistic programming. Help protect our freedoms. Write CBS about this.

You can read the letter at the original website here, and please scroll down to the reader responses to read the hilarity that ensued. There are more than 500 responses on this forum at Fark.com, starting with this gem:

If God wants a mention on tv, he can land his own damn plane....

Atlantis...Found on Google Earth?

I love stories like this. They fire up the imagination, and open doors to wonder and magic . . .

So . . . is this Atlantis?

Part II: Newspapers Must Evolve...and Right Now

Welcome to the second part of this creature that might be an essay. I began it yesterday with Part I: Is News Dying Along with Newspapers? Part II should, rightly, be subtitled, How a Smart-Ass with 14 years Experience in Newspapers Thinks Newspapers Have to Evolve . . . and Survive.

Look, you already know this, but I'll say it anyway: This is crunch time for print journalism. The old ways are dying, but newspapermen (and -women) are reluctant to give up their valued traditions. Hence, I believe, the major conflict in newspaper offices today: The CEOs and managers simply do not understand how to face the future. The options available to them are being clouded by a host of critical short-term problems which not only demand immediate action, but they obscure a view of any promise that might be in the future.

The news business is always reactionary; content depends on things that happen, every day, and we report it; our business models change as customer needs and demographics change.

At least, they're supposed to.

But we're in a period of massive upheaval now, and change has to come immediately -- and be radical. In short, any change has to be big, it has to be fast, and it will by its very nature go against the grain of every tenet newspaper people believe. The industry cannot afford to act traditionally right now -- instead it has to take some chances, make some gambles, and -- GASP! -- be innovative.

We have to create our own future as much as we can. News reporting, itself, is reactionary. But the business side cannot afford that philosophy any longer. The business side has to come to grips with a fast-moving, dynamic future . . . one that, frankly, is already here.

This means a lot of change and a lot of turmoil. It means that the business side is going to have to keep an eye on the basic problems every newspaper faces, as well as the ever-increasing competition; and if you don't remember how I define all that, I'll repeat it from a previous blog post:

The cost of newsprint is ever-increasing. General readership is dwindling. Its remaining readers and subscribers, generally over 40, are dying off day by day, and today's youth -- everybody under 40 -- are turning elsewhere for news and information. The Times-Dispatch's competition isn't Style or the Richmond Free Press; it's everything: television shows, radio, books, soccer practice, church, shopping, going to movies, dining out, surfing the Web, having sex, driving in rush hour, washing the dog, texting, Twittering, Facebooking, going to the National, vacationing, the Skins game...every damn thing is competition.

So: what to do?

A friend at the Times-Dispatch emailed me a few weeks ago and asked me what I think we had to do to save newspapers, and I'll tell you what I told him.

We can't save them all.

That's it, bottom line. It's a hard truth to face, but the shakeout that is inevitable is going to thin the herd substantially. Seriously. Many more than you think right now. Hardest hit, I believe, are going to be the metropolitan daily newspapers, of which the Richmond Times-Dispatch is a perfect example.

The reason why is simple. Fragmentation.

Over the years, with each new generation of technological advances in communication, the general audience -- for everything -- has gradually fragmented. Go to the magazine racks at Barnes & Noble or Borders. There are no copies of Life or Look (remember Look?). Offhand I can't think of a single magazine that caters to a general audience other than Reader's Digest. (And I would argue that RD is NOT general interest; no one reads it unless they're fifty plus, right-wingers, and they keep stacks of them in the bathroom. They have a definite target audience, with about a five- to fifteen-minute reading threshold before they have to flush.)

General interest magazines are failing -- and have been failing for years -- because their audience is fragmenting. The audiences (plural, now) are turning to magazines and shows and websites that cater to their interests, including news outlets. This is one important and overlooked reason the readership of the Times-Dispatch and other metro-dailies is dropping off rapidly.

The product isn't interesting to contemporary America.

That's a harsh concept to face, but newspapers must come to grips with it, and now. Newspapers can no longer afford to be all things for all people, when most of the audience in their circulation areas actively choose NOT to read the product.

Instead, to survive, metro-daily newspapers are going to have to change beyond the scope of what any tradition could ever imagine:

1. Physical format

Downsize the newspaper to the tabloid format, like the Village Voice or the New York Daily News. I can't guarantee that this will save money or not -- the bean counters in the ivory towers will have to sort all this out -- but talk around the RTD while I was there was that switching to tabloid would cut newsprint costs.

More importantly, the current broadsheet format of most newspapers is ubiquitous, and, therefore, not impressive to the populace. At all. It's ignored. Dull. We're talking about perception here. A tabloid format will probably be looked upon as innovative and interesting, new and different; not at all like the old-fashioned papers that only old people are buying, anyway.

2. Change the logo.

Seriously. Not kidding.

Fifty years ago, an old English masthead stood for something, giving the impression that the newspaper not only had substance, but it was impressive, it was dynamic; it was a rock upon which citizens could depend.

It represents exactly the opposite nowadays -- that the product isn't keeping up with the times or the new generations -- and the old-fashioned logos most newspapers use have actually become liabilities. They do exactly what mastheads and logos are supposed to do -- represent the newspaper in every way -- but the public now perceives it in a completely opposite manner than intended.

If the public can't be changed, then the product has to change.

3. Change the content radically.

Survey after survey tells the Marketing people that readers want more local news in the newspaper. The RTD has responded with publishing a big-headline local story, usually above the fold, every day.

It 's not enough.

This is going to be the biggest change the metro-dailies will have to face. It is both a content change and a philosophical change, and it is going to be both hated and highly controversial:

Metro dailies must change their content to focus 80% on local news.

And this is why: National news is regarded as free online and on television, and it is clear that readers prefer getting national and world news from those sources.

Okay then. Let them have it.

The core newspapers readers want more local news. They want it in a physical format that they can cut out and frame when their friends and family are featured.

Give it to them.

And this is what's going to happen: people seeking national news will reject the newspaper, because they can get all the news they want online. The people wanting local news will probably be very happy. The audience may actually grow as communities are featured more and more; and instead of focusing on general interest, bigger-picture stories -- which the public doesn't want -- reporters will examine the ins and outs of daily life in our tight communities.

Bottom line: journalism is a business that has to pull in revenue. Newspapers can no longer afford to give the public what they think the public needs. They have to give them what they want.

This is not a metro-daily that I particularly want to read, and I know it's not one that most reporters want to work for. But remember the core demographics of the newspaper today: over 40, white collar, college educated, household income generally more than $75,000 annually. These people are already reading the paper, and they're asking for more local content -- why not give it to them and see if circulation increases with stories about little Bobby's softball game, and how the local church group made quilts and raised $10,000 for malnourished African babies?

Three points newspapers have to face:

We are talking about publishing to a niche audience, not a general audience.

General interest publications are no longer viable in the marketplace.

Newspapers must adapt or die.


4. After defining your core niche, create new publications that focus on your region's other niche audiences.

You should have heard the howls of indignation and outrage in the RTD offices when Boomer Life appeared on the stands. It was right after the RTD publisher, Tom Silvestri, brought in the high-priced guru behind the Boomer Initiative, which quite correctly identified the core Times-Dispatch audience as members of the Baby Boomer generation. The RTD was gearing up to focus on this primary audience when issue #1 of Boomer Life was suddenly available in racks at Ukrop's and Food Lion, for free.

Imagine the journalistic body slam that shook the building.

That core audience -- niche, if you will -- is the RTD's bread and butter, baby. Turning the focus toward that audience, instead of a 100% general audience, would have been a smart step. But Boomer Life was a banana peel under the RTD's foot just about a year ago; and then this recession hit the newspaper industry like a tornado in a trailer park. Focus suddenly switched to survival.

There is a lesson, though. They were on target. Boomer Life took a little wind out of their sails, but the RTD was right to target that audience.

Now other niche audiences must be defined, and new publications must be created to cater to them. These magazines -- not newsprint products, but magazines, whether free or for sale -- ideally will replace and surpass the revenue lost by the paper's changeover to a Locals'-interest
newspaper. Consider: a daily paper, a month mag for women, a monthly mag for boomers (why not?), a monthly for parents and families, a bi-weekly for central VA tourism and museums, a home and garden bimonthly . . . and accompanying websites, with both local AND national advertising, PLUS web content updated at least weekly . . .

This is a new world we're talking about, and the Jurassic managers must evolve or . . . I think you get it.

(Why magazines, you ask? Because newspapers are considered common. Low. Magazines on glossy paper are upscale. Contemporary. Exciting. It's all about perception, isn't it?)

5. Sex it up.

I don't mean to add sex and sex stories to the paper or any new magazines (however, given the number of adult shops in metro Richmond, there might be an argument for an adults-only monthly mag . . .). What I mean is: Newspaper content has to be "sexy," as in, it has to be entertaining and has to make the public WANT to read it. The old argument that "Our news is best" or that the public needs our news just doesn't hold up today. They have to WANT to read the paper if the RTD expects people to pay for it. Stop telling news stories in the old-fashioned, boring, highly structured ways. Be creative with the use of language. Meet your readers at their own level -- not of intelligence or a reading level, but on a level of excitement, of fun, of experiencing what the world has to offer. Give articles an edge, damn it! Stop writing for pedestrians. Write for people who want to live! Give them what they want.

6. Consider a free, 100% advertising-supported model for the new Richmond Times-Dispatch.

I know it goes against everything newspaper people have stood for since time immemorial.

Get the hell over it. Do P & Ls out the ass. Swallow your pride and start thinking about surviving. Circulation will increase. The higher the circ, the higher the ad rates. That should mean more revenue, if you do it right. If.

Right?

6. Parent companies must diversify in news, non-news and non-publications areas.

NEWS: I'm thinking specifically, exploit the web. Create websites with news and articles for NATIONAL niche audiences. Stop thinking in local terms when you think about the Internet. LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE. News, showbiz news, sports news, financial news, weird news, tech news, shopping news, food news . . . each topic could have a daily-updated website, like Slate or Salon, and the pioneering news company that created this pantheon of sites (hint, hint, Media General) would be extremely well-positioned when the bottom finally drops out of the print news business within the next ten years.

And it will.

NON-NEWS: Websites with features and information, rather than just news. Game sites; opinion sites; cartoon sites. Even -- now, think about the damn revenue alone, okay? -- porn sites. (Time-Warner-AOL offers it in America's hotel rooms. Should MG or any other intermeganationalcongloporation be different? Holier than thou?)

NON-PUBLICATIONS: Newspaper corporations traditionally offer news and information. What's missing from that formula? Entertainment. Create Web content and television and YouTube and iPhone and iTunes content that is fun. Build a commercial audience. Think beyond news and think about what people want.

7. Look at basic cable.

This is my last point (thank you, I can hear the grateful sighs of relief from here). When the bottom drops out, and it will, only a handful of big newspaper companies will have the resources to create a national presence of any kind. The New York Times Co., yes. AP, yes -- but they won't. They are traditionalists who follow the rules instead of making them. Media General? Why, yes. What I'm suggesting is consider that "news" -- quality news -- cannot die with the slow death of newspapers.

What could, oh, say, a Media General do?

Online outlets -- and outlets in whatever the next big thing will be -- will need resources for news. When the news corps die, only a few will be left standing, and I predict they will all vie for dominance, offering their services to online outlets in much the same way as basic cable works today. Comcast will choose Media General; Time Warner will run with the AP; the Internet providers will pay for the news services, and then pass the costs on to the consumer. It will be only pennies, in the long run, to each consumer, so it's just a raise in "basic cable," if you will, and there will be little outcry. But it's serious revenue for the news corps that make it that far. And Richmond's own Media General is ideally situated, with all their sources of news. If they were to start thinking now, placing reporters and mini-bureaus in each state, even internationally, creating a digital infrastructure that would be able to report and publish on all their various and newly-created websites . . .

But this is all conjecture, though, isn't it? Not a damn thing is going to happen until the bowtie-wearing dinosaurs in the newspapers across the country finally pull their fat asses off the toilet, throw the paper on the bathroom floor, look around and say, "Something's got to be done."

But will something be done? Let me close with this story. About five years ago, I was asked to be on a task force at the RTD. We had a list of questions to answer -- each task force would pick one. As I remember it, we ended up with the question no one wanted . . . and I jumped at it. I will paraphrase, for my exact memory is fifty years worth of faulty: What can we as a newspaper do to increase circulation and advertising revenue . . . without changing anything that we are currently doing?

I laughed, and then we got to work. And our conclusions were much what you'd expect. If you're doing almost everything wrong, you can't expect to succeed without change.

Once the report was turned in, I asked one of the directors at the RTD, a friend, what was happening with it. I did this once a week, I think. Over a month later, she finally admitted to me, "You may as well stop asking. They didn't like it. It's quashed."

So . . .

Will something be done?

----

Thanks for bearing with me so far. Now, please let me ask you a favor. No, I'm not asking for donations through PayPal. I'll never do that. I blog for myself and I do not beg. BUT . . . If you enjoyed the posts about newspapers (and believe me, I'll continue them), if you were entertained or intrigued at all; if you think I have any skill as a writer (or even as a chimp who can type), I ask that if you have a line on any jobs in media, marketing, advertising or writing, please pass the information on to me. I've needed a job since before Christmas; but more importantly I also have a bunch of skilled and talented friends in the communications fields who need jobs, too. We were all fired or laid off from the Times-Dispatch -- we did our jobs very well, and we all kick ass. Send me an email and I'll send you some resumes, including mine.

Thanks everybody.

Why Newspapers Can't Make Money on the Internet

Before I slough my way into writing Part II of "Is News Dying Along with the Newspaper?" I suggest you read "What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else" by Doc Searls and David Weinberger. It was sent around on Facebook by a Times-Dispatch colleague who knows his stuff. Unfortunately, like everyone who is not a manager or higher in the echelons of Media General, they are paid scant attention. The culture there has for decades bred the concerted opinion in the upper offices that managers must only listen to managers. Articles, such as the one I point you to, or, for that matter, pieces about the reality of the newspaper business in trade journals such as Editor and Publisher, are read with fervor on the fourth floor of the RTD building initially, and then dismissed summarily.

Best practices. Convergence. Synergy. Web-first. We know what we're doing.

Yeah. Maybe you should learn how to listen to your people.

Naaaaaaah.

Here's a sample paragraph from "What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else":

When it comes to the Net, a lot of us suffer from Repetitive Mistake Syndrome. This is especially true for magazine and newspaper publishing, broadcasting, cable television, the record industry, the movie industry, and the telephone industry, to name just six.

After you read this highly illuminating article, click on the link on that site that reads "Rise of the Stupid Network" or you can go here. It's extremely technical, but you can see what the writer is saying: that keeping up with technology in order to keep your company in business goes hand in hand with valuing the employees:

Former Shell Group Planning Head, Arie deGeus, in his master work, "The Living Company" (Harvard, Boston, 1997), examined thousands of companies to try to discover what it takes to adapt to changing conditions. He found that the life expectancy of the average company was only 40 years - this means that telephone company culture is in advanced old age. De Geus also studied 27 companies that had been able to survive over 100 years. He concluded that managing for longevity - to maximize the chances that a company will adapt to changes in the business climate - is very different than managing for profit. For example, in the former, employees are part of a larger, cohesive whole, a work community. In the latter, employees are "resources" to be deployed or downsized as business dictates. As the Stupid Network arrives, as the business idea shifts from scarce physical infrastructure to something more knowledge based, company culture will need to adapt to the truth that, "Nobody knows as much as all of us."

Whatever we discover to be the new Stupid Network value proposition, my working hypothesis is that it will be based on intelligent end user devices, intelligent customers, employees whose intelligence is valued as a corporate asset, and companies that can learn.

Thanks for coming by. I'll post Part II of "Is News Dying Along with the Newspaper?" in short order.

UPDATED: Is News Dying Along with the Newspapers?

The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk made an announcement today:

The Virginian-Pilot, battling the recession, will lay off 30 more workers and suspend the print version of Port Folio Weekly, its 26-year-old free arts and entertainment weekly.

Port Folio’s last print edition will come out next week, said Maurice Jones, The Pilot’s president and publisher. Its Web site, http://www.portfolioweekly.com, will remain, and The Pilot will consider reopening the weekly paper when the economy improves, Jones said.

The Pilot also will close Mix, a free multicultural monthly that opened in 2007. The March issue will be Mix’s last.

Both publications were losing money, Jones said.

Around lunch time yesterday the powers that be at Media General, aka the Richmond Times-Dispatch, aka timesdispatch.com, Brick Weekly and Centro de Richmond, let their employees know they were each getting ten more vacation days this year. Unpaid, of course.

This is how the MG bowties are trying to staunch a wound. Newspapers are in some deep shit right now, and it seems like everybody BUT the bowties in charge want to face up to it.

You can't cure a disease with mere band-aids.

Here. Read this salon.com editorial before I go on. Salon.com writers are usually pretty bright, and this guy is no exception. Go on, read it; I'll wait right here.

[...sound of tv remote being clicked rapidly through 547 worthless Comcast channels...]

Hey, welcome back. Let me mute High School Musical 13 . . .

Okay. For what's it's worth, here's my take:

Gary Kamiya may be right about the future of journalism. He's right about mostly everything he says in this piece, actually. The paradigms of the news industry are in total upheaval, and everyone with a vested interest in newspapers, journalism and communications is scared shitless that the bottom is going to fall out.

Now get over it. And let's figure out what's next.

The bottom already is falling out, and now it's time to start thinking differently, instead of the old ways of thinking.

But this is where the Salon.com writer is wrong. One very old way of thinking that Kamiya still holds precious: "The Internet gives readers what they want; newspapers give them what they need."

That is a dinosaur talking.

Since the decline of newspapers started in the 1990s, the fossils behind the newsdesks have not yet figured out why circulation is declining, why they can't do anything to increase it; so they raise the price, raise the advertising rates, lay off a few people, redesign the paper to cut pages, thereby costs . . .

And nothing works. The situation just keeps getting worse. It's circular reasoning that borders on insanity.

The problem starts with the concept that The newspaper is needed.

It isn't. It's a groundbreaking communication vehicle . . . for the 1700s. Ben Franklin is long dead, and so are the days of moveable type. Cell phone, TV, radio, computers: we have virtually instantaneous sources for news, including this blog. Hey, look: scroll down a few entries, to February 15. See that post about the guy beheading his wife?

Know when I saw the story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch?
Yesterday, the 18th. Three days after I wrote about it.

Does that mean a blogger broke the story in Richmond?

If the newspaper is to survive -- and I think they can -- they have to evolve. We are living in a world of digital information and speed-of-fiber-optics delivery. The newspaper has become as functional as the Pony Express, and it is perceived as unwanted, too expensive, a burden, boring, black and white, old-fashioned, too traditional, and Jurassic. Slow, like a brontosaurus.

Now is not the time for band-aids. It is too late to try and fix things and return to the status quo. It's time for newspapers to evolve. It's time to give readers what they want.

This was a lesson newspapers understood in the 1930s to 1970s. Back then, papers wanted people to read the classified sections. To entice readers, they anchored the classifieds with single-panel cartoons. They gave readers what they liked and enjoyed, and it also served the purposes of the business.

What are newspapers today giving us that we really want? And, let me ask all you directors and managers at America's metropolitan newspapers: Open up your paper, right now. Go page by page and ask yourself if readers really want the Middle East War stories, or do you still think "that's what they NEED;" if today's readers really want Mary Worth or Peanuts reruns; if readers really want "Today's Prayer" and a bunch of made-up horoscopes; if they really want the column on playing bridge. Stocks are much more important, but you took out that daily listing. Ask yourselves: IF READERS REALLY WANT ALL THE STUFF THAT MAKES UP THE TRADITIONAL NEWSPAPER, WHY AREN'T THEY BUYING IT?

It's a new century, believe it or not, and the days of Hearst and Woodstein are over. Traditional is not only long gone; but tradition is killing journalism. Ask, instead, what types of publications are being bought today, right now, on the newsstands, that contain news. Look on the Internet and find the real sources of news -- the sources that people are going to.

You will discover, I believe, that a valid business model is NOT to give people what YOU THINK they need, but to give them what they want.

The news is most definitely needed. The printed form, and the traditional way of choosing what to publish, is most definitely not.

* * *

And that, my friends and gentle readers, is the end of Part I. Tune in tomorrow, same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel, for Part II: How a Smart-Ass with 14 years Experience in Newspapers Thinks Newspapers Have to Evolve . . . and Survive.

Cantor: "Out of the Saddle Again..."

Aerosmith is rightfully pissed that VA's Republitard Congressman Eric Cantor stole their song for a YouTube video opposing the Stimulus Bill.

The rockers are asking Cantor to stop using their song, and here's the story.

Eric is definitely the party of NO. As in, "No more, Cantor. No more."

They Should Have Interviewed the Bowman Body...

A new DVD is appearing on the shelves today, and it's a documentary celebration of one of my most-loved things: the late night horror movie shows and their (usually) cheesy hosts.


American Scary looks like a labor of love, and the list of horror hosts and experts the filmmakers interviewed is certainly impressive:

Forrest J. Ackerman
Douglas Agosti - Dr. Shock
Ernie Anderson - Ghoulardi (archive footage)
Curtis Armstrong
Bob Billbrough - Hives the Butler
Jerry G. Bishop - Svengoolie
John Bloom - Joe Bob Briggs
Bob Burns
Bill Cardille - Chilly Billy
Tim Conway
Shane Dallman - Remo D.
John Dimes - Dr. Sarcofiguy
Richard Dyszel - Count Gore DeVol
George 'E-Gor' Chastain
Lowell Cunningham
Frank J. Dello Stritto
Jeanne Dietrick - Joan E. Cleaver
Brian Easterling - Butch R. Cleaver
Reed Farrell - Christopher Coffin
Hart D. Fisher
Joseph Fotinos - Professor Anton Griffin
Neil Gaiman
Donald F. Glut
Chris Gore
Jim Hendricks - Commander USA
Timothy Herron - Baron Von Wolfstein
Bob Hinton - A. Ghastlee Ghoul
Barry Hobart - Dr. Creep
Joel Hodgson - Mystery Science Theater 3000
John Kassir - The Cryptkeeper
Eric Lobo - Mr. Lobo
Leonard Maltin
Hayden Milligan - I. Zombi
Michael Monahan - Doktor Goulfinger
Joe Monks
James Morrow
David Nielsen
Mark Newman - Dr. Mor B.S.
Kevin Novotny - Ghoul-a-Go-Go's Vlad Tsepis
Maila Nurmi - Vampira
The Patient Creatures:
Bob Beidman - Carpathian
P.D. Cacek - Moira the Banshee
Andrew Ely - Grimm
Virginia Ely - Kuzibah
Mia Rotondo - Miss Scarlett
Kevin Rice - Ghoul-a-Go-Go's Creighton
John Rinaldi - Big Chuck and Li'l John Show
Tom Savini
Keven Scarpino - Son of Ghoul
Chuck Schodowski - Big Chuck and Li'l John Show
Karen Scioli - Stella
Roberta Solomon - Crematia Mortem
Ron Sweed - The Ghoul
John Stanley - Creature Features
Patricia Tallman
Jeff Thompson
Phil Tippett
Larry Underwood - Dr. Gangrene
Len Wein
Darren Wilhite
Bob Wilkins - Creature Features
John Zacherle - Zacherley

But my two favorites aren't on here. When I was growing up and living in Hampton, Jerry Harrell created Dr. Madblood for the Hampton Roads NBC affiliate. In 1975, Harrell's not-so-mad doctor was wonderfully counterculture, a perfect mix with that new show on late on NBC, Saturday Night. Madblood, I think, is still on, too -- on another channel -- and he has a website that I urge you to visit.

Even more important, in my formative years prior to Madblood, as I started collecting Famous Monsters of Filmland, Vampirella, Creepy and Eerie, and my favorite, The Monster Times, we did not have cable television. Channels from far distant lands would occasionally bleed through the invisible airwaves, and on the weekends, if I angled the rabbit years just right, I'd be rewarded with WXEX Channel 8, and the best and funniest horror host I've ever seen: Richmond's own Bowman Body.

I've written about Bill Bowman and his late night impact before, in one of my previous blogs and in the Richmond Times-Dispatch at Halloween 2007, so I won't repeat myself too much here. My only wishes are that the filmmakers had interviewed Bill about hosting a horror show in the South in the early '70s . . . and that Bill knows how fondly his viewers remember him thirty-some years after crawling out of a puke-green coffin in cape and hi-tops.

As far as I'm concerned, Liberty still rings the ol' bell!

Our Man in D.C. is a Public Embarrassment

Eric Cantor, Republitard-VA, our self-appointed "Next Newt," has already made up his mind about the mortgage issue before President Obama has even announced what the GOP will be frothing at the mouth against. Read about it here. The public comments are especially funny.

If you want more, here's a little background on Cantor from a blogger in Midlothian. Insightful reading.

A free Revolutionary War fantasy novel online

I've never read anything by Charles Coleman Finlay before, but I will now. He's begun a trilogy of historical fantasy novels, and the first one is free to download as a pdf here.

Make sure you check out the rest of his website and bibliography, and let me know what you think about The Patriot Witch -- I'll probably post a mini review here in the next week or so . . .

...and you don't even need a cape to fly...

If anybody you know ever asks, "What kind of grown-up reads comics books?" this essay explains what their magic is all about.

They're about the secret adventurer that's hidden in every single one of our hearts, just waiting for the right moment to jump in a phone booth and then save the day.

Our Canadian Actor Friend

Maria and I lived in Orlando in 1991 and half of '92. We made a lot of new friends there, mostly Disney employees, and most from the Adventurers Club on Pleasure Island.

The Adventurers Club, sadly, is closed now, devoid of improv, comedy, special effects and songs, except when private banquets rent the place out (which I hear will cease some time this year). Our friends, however still exist. We keep in touch with two very good ones, Darin DePaul, a Broadway actor, and Mike Speller, a writer and actor in Chicago, both of whom I've blogged and bragged about. They are two of the nicest and most talented guys I know -- and the last of the true gentlemen.

Darin and Mike. They're the best!

We lost contact with Paula Pell, a wonderful comic actress and voice talent when we knew her. She was the first actor at the Club to talk about how she loved it in Orlando and that we should move from Virginia. Then she left Disney and somehow found her way to New York, where she currently writes for Saturday Night Live. She pops up occasionally on the show, as Lorne's wife or, usually, as a member of the studio audience. Not a bad gig.

Paula Pell

I was downstairs in the kitchen tonight, my fingers oily from rubbing skin medicine onto my cocker spaniel's nose, when I heard Maria scream incoherently shortly before 11:00.

I yelled upstairs, "You all right?"

Silence. Then, real fast: "GETUPHERE!"

I smeared the meds on a paper towel and took the steps three at a time. Maria was grinning as she pointed at her TV. There was Genie Francis, getting married to Ted McGinley in the final scene of some ubiquitous Hallmark cable tv chick flick.

And there, in the center, officiating at their wedding, was another alumnus from the Adventurers Club, and our friend, Kristian Truelsen.


The tv movie is The Note II: Taking a Chance on Love, and you can read a little about it on Kris's blog, Ghost Balloon. (The exact post is here.)

It was great to see his smiling face on the screen, if only for a few seconds. We usually only exchange Christmas cards nowadays, and that's a shame, because Kris is a fine and dedicated actor, a hell of a comic talent and improv artist, and a great conversationalist. He turned me on to lateral thinking puzzles, for which I will NEVER forgive him, on the same day he, Mike, Darin and I attended a Clinton-Gore rally in Orlando in 1992. Then we had lunch at the best restaurant in Orlando at the time, Pebbles (now just a distant memory).

Please visit Kris at his blog or at his professional website, and please go to his post on IMDB to check what movies or tv shows you may have seen him in. And if you drop him a line, tell him Rusty sent you...and that Maria and I miss him!

...Currently Under Arrest for Beheading his Wife...

Please. You must! Click the pic to enlarge.

MR. PLAYBOY -- my Times-Dispatch Book Review

Even though I'm a critic of newspapers and their traditionally old-fashioned operational policies, I still love them, and I even occasionally write for them.

Here's my latest, a book review of Mr. Playboy by Steven Watts.

UPDATED: How Washington Really Works

I'm not a politician, so when an essay or a blog like this comes along, my eyes open up a little bit wider, and I can finally see how the games are played deep in the recesses of our Government's sanctum sanctorum.


Mark Evanier is an incredible writer in Hollywood, and his blog is one I read every day. (He's also very smart, and a very nice guy: he feeds the possums and the cats who drop by his back door on a regular basis.) Here's a link to his latest post, about backstage politics in Washington. Because it's short enough, I'll also reprint it here, along with some important links he provided:

Years ago, I saw this wonderful interview with Tip O'Neill, who was then the Speaker of the House. The following is a paraphrase from memory.

O'Neill said that in Congress, the job of each party's leader was to be able to count; that if you were ever surprised by any vote by more than a margin of more than one in the Senate or three in the House, you were utterly incompetent and should resign. And the importance of being able to count was that there are often (quite often) bills that you want to vote against and still see pass or vice-versa...so you have to make sure you don't accidentally pass or defeat a bill just because you're voting in opposition to the way you want to see it go.

He told a story about a Congressman from one state. There was a bill pending that would have been very good for this guy's state and he thought it should pass...but the hardcore part of his base back home was opposed to it. They were a small minority but he couldn't afford politically to tick them off. So he kept coming to O'Neill and asking, "Have you got the votes, Tip?" Meaning, "Will it be safe for me to vote against it so I can please the nut jobs?" And he was a happy man when O'Neill informed him there were enough votes to pass the bill even without his.

You get the feeling that's what we just went through with the Stimulus Bill? Arlen Specter made a statement the other day that an unnamed Republican senator who'd voted against it told him how pleased he was that it had passed. This article says a lot of G.O.P. legislators are delighted with portions of the bill they voted against.

Obviously, it's possible to be happy about one piece and unhappy with the whole. But it's also possible that the Republicans didn't dare obstruct this bill and that they were always going to deliver enough moderate votes to pass the thing. You think maybe?

• Posted Saturday, February 14, 2009 at 11:48 AM

Mark's latest book, on the life and art of comics legend Jack Kirby, is available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

UPDATE: Given what Mark's blog reveals about how the Republitards are hiding behind numbers -- their vote of zero -- while secretly happy that their portions of the Stimulus Bill went through, it shouldn't be a surprise that Drudge slants their headline to do damage to the democrats:

For All the Bat-Geeks Like Me

You can call Commissioner Gordon here.

"President Obama Is Driving Republicans Insane"

There are three websites I go to every day. The Drudge Report, for the conservative slant on news; the Huffington Post, for the liberal slant; and Fark, for the wild, weird, unexpurgated truth.

This guy, Bob Cesca, a writer and blogger on HuffPo, does something that is beyond me. He writes smart and funny at the same time. When I try that, I just get a headache, and fat little Rush Limbaughs swim cartoon-like around my head, urging me to eat a Twinkie.

This is his latest post, and it's great. It's politicians and commentators at their craziest.

I love it.

Newspapers: Suicide by Greed and Stupidity

A friend at the Times-Dispatch sent me a link to a blog I've never seen before, which I hereby point you to. This post refers to the Time article by Walter Isaacson in which he argues that "micropayments," that is, small payments for reading individual articles on newspaper websites, will not only work with us users, but will save newspapers.

If you listen closely, you can feel the final, futile vibrations of a dinosaur's tail as it thrashes helplessly upon the unforgiving earth.

I refuted Isaacson's essay in this post on Feb. 6. The Print CEO blog has an excerpt from the Daily Show, where Isaacson spoke with Jon Stewart; and the blog doesn't refute Time's piece, but suggests instead that

Jon Stewart’s idea to use chemically addictive ink might have some merit too. At least to save the printed newspaper.

This explanatory essay, linked from the Print CEO blog, does a much better job at explaining why micropayments will never work.

The dinosaurs just don't understand. And they won't until the ugly truth is shoved down their throats.

What the Stimulus Fight is REALLY About

This brief, yet insightful essay from the New Yorker online cuts right to the heart of the matter.

I still hate politicians . . .

Times-Dispatch: Shut Down the Website for a Week!

Here's the whole story from a writer in L.A. Do I think any newspaper will do what he suggests?

Not a chance in hell.

Make sure you rummage through the links at the bottom...

Print Loses; TV Wins

Sad, but becoming true. Here's a New York Times article about how we're in a visual age, and that reading just isn't an immersive experience to today's generation . . . because it's a burden.

I disagree with that point. Reading is just as important and perhaps even more popular than ever -- look how crowded every Barnes & Noble is on Friday and Saturday nights. I think it may be that we just have so many choices to read nowadays, that today, unlike in the past, we can't establish clear winners . . . except in cases of huge bestsellers, such as the Harry Potter books.

Also of interest is the new (to me) concept of "three screens:" TV, the Internet and mobile phones.

The competition for reading is exactly what I said in an earlier post about newspapers: the competition isn't other books, other magazines. It's everything:

television shows, radio, books, soccer practice, church, shopping, going to movies, dining out, surfing the Web, having sex, driving in rush hour, washing the dog, texting, Twittering, Facebooking, going to the National, vacationing, the Skins game...every damn thing is competition.

I'm reading a wonderful (so far) mystery right now: Obedience by Will Lavender. It is SO much more engaging than any comparable show on TV. Yes, reading has competition. But nothing can replace the true immersion, the true experience, of being swallowed into a book.

Keep reading.

New Planets Discovered

This blog is all about escape: escape from the cold and the mundane, to run to the tropics; to escape to worlds of wonder; to escape to times not our own; to escape from the confines of our little planet, if only via the spacecraft of our imagination.

However, astronomers are escaping every day, casting their gaze out toward the stars, using the tools of contemporary technology; and they've found a wealth of other planets, including one that is "rocky" like Earth, and not even twice our size, so it's not a gas giant or a super-Earth.

Here's the USAToday article.

I want to go.

Today's DEATH OF PRINT Headlines

From the conservative Drudge Report:

REINVENTION DRAWS NEAR FOR NEWSWEEK... DEVELOPING...

NEW YORK TIMES DECLARES: DON'T COUNT US OUT, 'LAST MAN STANDING' STRATEGY... DEVELOPING...

Boldly Going to a Galaxy Far, Far Away

THE ULTIMATE DEATH MATCH

KIRK
VADER

IT'S LIGHT SABERS VERSUS PHASERS . . .

THE WRATH OF THE EMPIRE

Yeah, I WOULD pay to see this movie . . .

Magazines are Dying, Too?

Mark Evanier, a comedy writer in LA, has a blog which I go to every day. I've never met him, but he seems a gentle soul, and extremely smart, and highly knowledgeable in ways I cannot explain. Go to his website and see for yourself.

In a post about MAD Magazine and its near future, Mark references "a general and growing disinterest in this country in the basic concept of buying magazines of any kind."

Sadly, I believe this to be true; and even more importantly, I believe it to be true about ANY kind of concept of pay-per-hit Internet magazines . . . which includes newspapers.

But Mark's post is about MAD . . . which of course is much more important than a newspaper.

Seriously: there are a thousand or more newspapers.

Name more than four existing humor magazines.

Seriously, besides MAD, can you name another?

I'm mad about MAD.

Newspapers: Unable to Face Reality

The dinosaurs are trying to roar, but to us it sounds only like whimpering.

Time has posted online an opinion piece, "How to Save Your Newspaper," which has its heart in the right place, but its brain is in suspended animation around frigid Schenectady. The writer, Walter Isaacson, is incredibly smart, has a wealth of knowledge and experience behind him, and is completely naive in the realities of Internet-savvy America and both what we need and, especially, what we want.

I post the article here in its entirety so that I may criticize it and make objective comments. Please click on the link above for the Time article as it appears online. My comments are yellow in the article, reprinted below.

Thursday, Feb. 05, 2009

How to Save Your Newspaper

By Walter Isaacson

This story has been modified from its original version

During the past few months, the crisis in journalism has reached meltdown proportions. Not true. Journalism itself is not having a crisis -- news reporting is just as good or better than ever. The financial side of publishing a newspaper is, however, collapsing in upon itself and creating a black hole on Wall Street. It is now possible to contemplate a time when some major cities will no longer have a newspaper Especially the metro papers and when magazines and network-news operations will employ no more than a handful of reporters.

There is, however, a striking and somewhat odd fact about this crisis. Newspapers have more readers than ever. Not true, as this sentence explains: Their content, as well as that of newsmagazines and other producers of traditional journalism, is more popular than ever — even (in fact, especially) among young people. THAT is true. Content is king. People need the news. But they do not want their news in the newspaper format. The old-fashioned page format, the old-fashioned way of "subscribe or buy" distribution, are important factors in the downfall of the newspaper industry that are not being faced by management.

The problem is that fewer of these consumers are paying. Instead, news organizations are merrily giving away their news. Merrily? Not hardly. The companies just don't know what to do yet. According to a Pew Research Center study, a tipping point occurred last year: more people in the U.S. got their news online for free than paid for it by buying newspapers and magazines. Who can blame them? Even an old print junkie like me has quit subscribing to the New York Times, because if it doesn't see fit to charge for its content, I'd feel like a fool paying for it. But it isn't free, and this is another factor that management is failing to consider. Television used to be free, paid for by advertisers. Then cable came along, and America discovered it was willing to pay for more channels, more interesting content, and better reception. Now the Internet has come along, and we are also paying for that. Both cable and Internet are monthly bills for most of us -- so we ARE paying for the news. The logical extension of this argument is that perhaps newspapers need to go back in time to when television was free. That's right. Free newspapers, completely paid for by advertising. Naaaah. Never happen.

This is not a business model that makes sense. No, it's not. But newspapers are stuck: if they pull out of the Internet, someone else will take their place. Perhaps it appeared to when Web advertising was booming and every half-sentient publisher could pretend to be among the clan who "got it" by chanting the mantra that the ad-supported Web was "the future." But when Web advertising declined in the fourth quarter of 2008, free felt like the future of journalism only in the sense that a steep cliff is the future for a herd of lemmings. (See who got the world into this financial mess.)

Newspapers and magazines traditionally have had three revenue sources: newsstand sales, subscriptions and advertising. The new business model relies only on the last of these. That makes for a wobbly stool even when the one leg is strong. When it weakens — as countless publishers have seen happen as a result of the recession — the stool can't possibly stand. And this is what's happening today. This part, he got right.

Henry Luce, a co-founder of TIME, disdained the notion of giveaway publications that relied solely on ad revenue. He called that formula "morally abhorrent" and also "economically self-defeating." That was because he believed that good journalism required that a publication's primary duty be to its readers, not to its advertisers. In an advertising-only revenue model, the incentive is perverse. It is also self-defeating, because eventually you will weaken your bond with your readers if you do not feel directly dependent on them for your revenue. But we CAN'T depend on readers any more . . . because we are losing them, in herds, droves, schools and flocks. This is circular thinking, and indicates if not a complete willingness to run away from the harsh realities of consumers and the newspaper -- almost every newspaper is doing this type of childish reasoning -- then it indicates an infinite loop of strategic and, ultimately,financial madness. When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, Dr. Johnson said, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. Journalism's fortnight is upon us, and I suspect that 2009 will be remembered as the year news organizations realized that further rounds of cost-cutting would not stave off the hangman.

One option for survival being tried by some publications, such as the Christian Science Monitor and the Detroit Free Press, is to eliminate or drastically cut their print editions and focus on their free websites. Others may try to ride out the long winter, hope that their competitors die and pray that they will grab a large enough share of advertising to make a profitable go of it as free sites. That's fine. We need a variety of competing strategies. You bet your ass we do.

These approaches, however, still make a publication completely beholden to its advertisers. Start thinking differently, dinosaurs. The old way just isn't working any more. So I am hoping that this year will see the dawn of a bold, old idea that will provide yet another option that some news organizations might choose: getting paid by users for the services they provide and the journalism they produce. Not a bad idea. So . . . how?

This notion of charging for content is an old idea not simply because newspapers and magazines have been doing it for more than four centuries. It's also something they used to do at the dawn of the online era, in the early 1990s. Back then there were a passel of online service companies, such as Prodigy, CompuServe, Delphi and AOL. They used to charge users for the minutes people spent online, and it was naturally in their interest to keep the users online for as long as possible. As a result, good content was valued. When I was in charge of TIME's nascent online-media department back then, every year or so we would play off AOL and CompuServe; one year the bidding for our magazine and bulletin boards reached $1 million.

Then along came tools that made it easier for publications and users to venture onto the open Internet rather than remain in the walled gardens created by the online services. I remember talking to Louis Rossetto, then the editor of Wired, about ways to put our magazines directly online, and we decided that the best strategy was to use the hypertext markup language and transfer protocols that defined the World Wide Web. Wired and TIME made the plunge the same week in 1994, and within a year most other publications had done so as well. We invented things like banner ads that brought in a rising tide of revenue, but the upshot was that we abandoned getting paid for content.

One of history's ironies is that hypertext — an embedded Web link that refers you to another page or site — had been invented by Ted Nelson in the early 1960s with the goal of enabling micropayments for content. He wanted to make sure that the people who created good stuff got rewarded for it. In his vision, all links on a page would facilitate the accrual of small, automatic payments for whatever content was accessed. Instead, the Web got caught up in the ethos that information wants to be free. The free television model that has prevailed since the 1950s has spoiled America. If it's on a tv (a monitor), then content is expected to be free. This may be a concept that may prove inviolate with the public. Maybe it's time content providers faced this and stopped fighting it, hm? Others smarter than we were had avoided that trap. For example, when Bill Gates noticed in 1976 that hobbyists were freely sharing Altair BASIC, a code he and his colleagues had written, he sent an open letter to members of the Homebrew Computer Club telling them to stop. "One thing you do is prevent good software from being written," he railed. "Who can afford to do professional work for nothing?"

The easy Internet ad dollars of the late 1990s enticed newspapers and magazines to put all of their content, plus a whole lot of blogs and whistles, onto their websites for free. Wrong. Ad dollars on the Internet have NEVER been easy to get. Papers and magazines jumped on the web because they realized if they didn't, they'd be left behind. But the bulk of the ad dollars has ended up flowing to groups that did not actually create much content but instead piggybacked on it: search engines, portals and some aggregators.

Another group that benefits from free journalism is Internet service providers. They get to charge customers $20 to $30 a month for access to the Web's trove of free content and services. As a result, it is not in their interest to facilitate easy ways for media creators to charge for their content. Thus we have a world in which phone companies have accustomed kids to paying up to 20 cents when they send a text message but it seems technologically and psychologically impossible to get people to pay 10 cents for a magazine, newspaper or newscast. Kids WANT to text message. It's cool. Most adults couldn't care less.

Currently a few newspapers, most notably the Wall Street Journal, charge for their online editions by requiring a monthly subscription. This is a newspaper whose regular readers can all afford an extra monthly charge. But what has happened across the country when local newspapers have tried to charge for their services? When Rupert Murdoch acquired the Journal, he ruminated publicly about dropping the fee. But Murdoch is, above all, a smart businessman. He took a look at the economics and decided it was lunacy to forgo the revenue — and that was even before the online ad market began contracting. Now his move looks really smart. Paid subscriptions for the Journal's website were up more than 7% in a very gloomy 2008. Plus, he spooked the New York Times into dropping its own halfhearted attempts to get subscription revenue, which were based on the (I think flawed) premise that it should charge for the paper's punditry rather than for its great reporting. (Author's note: After publication the New York Times vehemently denied that their thinking was influenced by outside considerations; I accept their explanation.)

But I don't think that subscriptions will solve everything — nor should they be the only way to charge for content. A person who wants one day's edition of a newspaper or is enticed by a link to an interesting article is rarely going to go through the cost and hassle of signing up for a subscription under today's clunky payment systems. The key to attracting online revenue, I think, is to come up with an iTunes-easy method of micropayment. We need something like digital coins or an E-ZPass digital wallet — a one-click system with a really simple interface that will permit impulse purchases of a newspaper, magazine, article, blog or video for a penny, nickel, dime or whatever the creator chooses to charge. Listen: you can hear the laughter ringing out through cyberspace . . .

Admittedly, the Internet is littered with failed micropayment companies. If you remember Flooz, Beenz, CyberCash, Bitpass, Peppercoin and DigiCash, it's probably because you lost money investing in them. Many tracts and blog entries have been written about how the concept can't work because of bad tech or mental transaction costs.

But things have changed. "With newspapers entering bankruptcy even as their audience grows, the threat is not just to the companies that own them, but also to the news itself," wrote the savvy New York Times columnist David Carr last month in a column endorsing the idea of paid content. This creates a necessity that ought to be the mother of invention. In addition, our two most creative digital innovators have shown that a pay-per-drink model can work when it's made easy enough: Steve Jobs got music consumers (of all people) comfortable with the concept of paying 99 cents for a tune instead of Napsterizing an entire industry, and Jeff Bezos with his Kindle showed that consumers would buy electronic versions of books, magazines and newspapers if purchases could be done simply. The author clearly does not understand who the American audience is today. Music sells, because we've always had to pay for it (except in the measly bites free radio gave us in its heyday) AND, more importantly, because people want it. TV shows on iPods, not selling as much. There are other and better ways for people to watch their shows. And Jeff Bezos and Amazon's Kindle are NOT yet a success. I'm a reader and a writer, and other than one writer I know of, who is rich, filthy, stinking rich, God bless him, I know of no one who has even seen a Kindle, much less bought one.

What Internet payment options are there today? PayPal is the most famous, but it has transaction costs too high for impulse buys of less than a dollar. The denizens of Facebook are embracing systems like Spare Change, which allows them to charge their PayPal accounts or credit cards to get digital currency they can spend in small amounts. Similar services include Bee-Tokens and Tipjoy. Twitter users have Twitpay, which is a micropayment service for the micromessaging set. Gamers have their own digital currencies that can be used for impulse buys during online role-playing games. And real-world commuters are used to gizmos like E-ZPass, which deducts automatically from their prepaid account as they glide through a highway tollbooth.

Under a micropayment system, a newspaper might decide to charge a nickel for an article or a dime for that day's full edition or $2 for a month's worth of Web access. Some surfers would balk, but I suspect most would merrily click through if it were cheap and easy enough. Again, he uses merrily. And again, he's completely wrong. Most would not click through if they were being charged. Most people I know don't even click through Internet ads. Face it, Charlie: nobody wants to pay for the newspaper any more. Get over it and move on. Merrily.

The system could be used for all forms of media: magazines and blogs, games and apps, TV newscasts and amateur videos, porn pictures and policy monographs, the reports of citizen journalists, recipes of great cooks and songs of garage bands. This would not only offer a lifeline to traditional media outlets but also nourish citizen journalists and bloggers. They have vastly enriched our realms of information and ideas, but most can't make much money at it. As a result, they tend to do it for the ego kick or as a civic contribution. A micropayment system would allow regular folks, the types who have to worry about feeding their families, to supplement their income by doing citizen journalism that is of value to their community. It's called asking for donations through PayPal. A lot of bloggers do it.

When I used to go fishing in the bayous of Louisiana as a boy, my friend Thomas would sometimes steal ice from those machines outside gas stations. He had the theory that ice should be free. We didn't reflect much on who would make the ice if it were free, but fortunately we grew out of that phase. That was called stealing, and the author is being disingenuous with us. If you don't want your content "stolen," then don't post it. Or go ahead and put a lock on it: let's get the Times-Dispatch to charging for access to the articles, the obituaries. Then maybe you'll see how many subscribers they DON'T have. Likewise, those who believe that all content should be free should reflect on who will open bureaus in Baghdad or be able to fly off as freelancers to report in Rwanda under such a system.

I say this not because I am "evil," which is the description my daughter slings at those who want to charge for their Web content, music or apps. Instead, I say this because my daughter is very creative, and when she gets older, I want her to get paid for producing really neat stuff rather than come to me for money or decide that it makes more sense to be an investment banker.

I say this, too, because I love journalism. I think it is valuable and should be valued by its consumers. Agreed. Charging for content forces discipline on journalists: they must produce things that people actually value. Then you're calling for a radical rethinking of what a newspaper is all about, because the public doesn't care about journalism: it cares about good stories. I suspect we will find that this necessity is actually liberating. The need to be valued by readers — serving them first and foremost rather than relying solely on advertising revenue — will allow the media once again to set their compass true to what journalism should always be about. Good luck with that. Hey, here's an idea: maybe, create a product that people like and want, and you won't have a problem selling it. Instead, you're just beating a dead horse.

Isaacson, a former managing editor of TIME, is president and CEO of the Aspen Institute and author, most recently, of Einstein: His Life and Universe.

Wornom, a freelance writer, was in the newspaper industry for fifteen years. He would like to see newspapers continue, but he finds the paper increasingly irrelevant to the public at large.

Limbaugh, Hatred, and Philosophy via Starbucks

"Anger is contagious."
Sandra Cisneros
Starbucks cup # 276

Just some simple words on the side of a coffee cup.

Yet true.

* * *

If you look on my Facebook page, you will see the absolute truth in my profile, under POLITICAL VIEWS.

Goddamned independent.

Some of my conservative friends have been aghast when they discovered I am liberal. Some of my Democratic friends have been aghast when I told them I've voted Republican.

See, I'll vote for the man -- or woman -- who I think is best for the job: someone who will not play party politics -- or who I believe will play politics less than the other. Someone who is strong enough to make their own decisions, based on facts and circumstance -- not based on what their constituency wants.

Because the truth is -- and let's face it, I'm talking mostly about the Presidency, here -- I don't want another Reagan or Nixon; nor a Carter, although his heart was in the right place, because he just wasn't strong enough; nor a Clinton, who rarely bucked the dictates of the Dems-in-charge. I wanted Gary Hart. I wanted John Anderson.

I wanted a Prez who could be his own man.

But -- we got party politics as usual.

Rush Limbaugh is the radio mouthpiece of American Conservatives, and the primary venue for their politics is Fox News on cable. Limbo (and all the jabbering heads on Fox News) tells his constituency -- for, really, that's what it is -- exactly what they want to hear. He gives them support. It's political therapy for the Haves, and screw the Have Nots. He -- and Fox News, in their mean-spirited acts of biased outrage at, well, everything they don't like -- don't give a damn about America. They only care about themselves . . . and, by extension, other conservatives . . . because there is strength in numbers; and numbers = power; and power, in 21st century America, equals money.

They want to be in charge. Bottom line. And they'll do and say anything to wield that power.

Especially hurting the people that disagree with them.

This anger, this hatred, is contagious. And on a very human level, it is just evil.

I just can't sit back any longer and be silent. I want to be as apolitical as possible, but I can't take the dirty tricks any more. I can't take the lies, the power plays, the ruining of reputations. Honestly, both the Dems and the GOP play these games; both the Liberals and the Conservatives. But for the last sixteen years, I have deduced one thing: the conservative Republicans are the worst. They hide behind the American Flag and the Bible, yet their actions contradict the very meaning of both. Freedom. Love. Tolerance.

Take, for example, the newborn hatred of our new President. He's the one who Limbo, sarcastically, calls the Great Unifier, simply because Obama wants to bring the parties together to form a . . . wow! a nation of true Americans. United. Like the States.

But this will take power away from one party, will it not? If one wins, one will lose. Correct?

The old playground philosophy. Black, white; right, wrong; tit for tat. Old-fashioned thinking. Us versus Them. The politics of hate.

Last week, Republican Phil Gingrey courageously took Rush to task for criticizing the President. Courageous, I thought.

Only one day later, Gingrey called the conservative mouthpiece and publicly sucked up to his far-right base on the air:

Following statements made to Politico yesterday telling Rush Limbaugh to "back off," Republican congressman Phil Gingrey now has his tail between his legs. In a groveling call to Limbaugh's conservative radio program this afternoon, Gingrey offered a humble apology and described Limbaugh as a "conservative giant" who plays an integral role in maintaining the ever-decreasing Republican base.

Go here for the whole story and some video.

My point: Politicos are bowing to a mere radio host; playing sides instead of doing their job for all of America. And this guy they're bowing to makes public the conservative party position every day, that minorities can get away with anything, Hillary Clinton is a “B-I-itch” who has a “testicle lockbox,” and Obama is a “little black man-child.” The thing that kills me -- and, to a degree, makes me want to laugh out loud -- is that "Rush Limbaugh" is a character. Rush, the man, after a mediocre career in radio, then marketing, later reinvented himself in radio as a voice of conservatism in northern California. I point you to this blog by Beau Weaver, a national voice-over talent with a history in radio and the early days of Rush's career, who chronicles and dissects the creation of "Rush Limbaugh." Weaver's conclusions are the same as mine: "Rush’s success has almost completely destroyed our ability to have a constructive national dialog about policy."

It's a collective voice of anger and hatred that will not listen to reason.

A friend of mine recently received some racist, anti-Obama email. It moved him to post a note to all his friends on Facebook:

How have we evolved and progressed as a people? The people of the United States have now elected their first black president. Yes, I know not everyone cast their vote for him, but a majority did, and most of the time in the U.S.A., the majority is on the side that wins. Not always, of course. There are exceptions, such as the elections of John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes over Samuel J. Tilden in 1876, Grover Cleveland over Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and of course, George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000. But those are the exceptions, not the rule.

Many see this as a turning point in American history. That America has finally put aside its racial differences and made monumental change in the defeat of racism. I want to believe this is true. I desperately pray for a change of heart in my country. Racism serves no purpose in our lives. It is driven by fear and hate and the most despicable emotions in human nature. I love the United States and all it stands for. I am not proud of every aspect of our history, but I am very proud of my country on the whole. However, this post is really not about the president.

I must confess that when I look around, I still see so much work to be done. There are so many people in this nation that still judge a man by the color of his skin, not the quality of his character. And I will confess that there are times that I catch myself spouting something that could be offensive to others based on their ethnic background. I have honestly tried to change myself and the way I was raised to look past a person’s background and only judge them on what they present to me as a person on an individual basis. I don’t always succeed.

With that in mind, I ask these questions. How many times do we spout off a racially offensive joke or statement? How many times do we forward this type of joke or statement on to our friends when they arrive in our email box?

Do you send those "I love Christ" type of emails along with them? Do you think Christ would approve of your views?

Do you ignore them? Do you roll your eyes and delete them? Do you ask the person who sent it to you to not send you those types of insensitive things?

Do you laugh?

When you see this type of statement from your friends, does it change the way you view them? Do they remain your friends? What is our responsibility in combating the ongoing struggle to overcome our past and look towards a new future?

Should we ignore these statements, or should we make a stand? If we say something to the person who makes the statement, will it damage a friendship? Is it worth the possibility of losing that friend in order to move forward as a people? Will it even make a difference?

And this brings up another basic tenet of the American values. Freedom of speech. Guaranteed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Let’s state it here for all to read:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Congress shall make NO LAW…abridging the freedom of speech. Okay, but what about individuals? What is our responsibility? Just as I am looking in the mirror, I ask you to do the same.

For myself, all I can do is what I feel is right. And I will let this serve as my only notice to anyone who cares to have read this far into this post. I will not stand for any racist comment posted on my pages. They will be deleted. Repeated offenses will be “un-friended”. Say whatever you want on your own pages, but I will not tolerate it on mine. Do not send me any email with this type of humor. I do not care to read it.

I am not a saint, far from it. I will make mistakes. Sorry, just the way it is. But I will do my small part to advance our society and make this world even a slightly better place to live.

Those are good words, and they deserve to be read by many. They touch a deep, dark part of us all -- they strike at a corner of our individual souls that is shameful.

I guess my main point is this: I really don't care what Republicans do -- or try to get others to do -- in their own homes. The same goes for Democrats. Let them hate. They can keep it in their own, foul hearts, their own cesspool homes.

Screw

Them

All.

But when their childish actions, their one-sided politics, their mean-spirited beliefs -- their hatred -- affect the country as a whole, then, sorry, I have to speak up.

I have to speak against.

Against parties. Against politics. Against hate. Against the games that hurt you and me, where the money men in the shadows choose nasty, juvenile, irrelevant sides, like kids on a playground, playing kickball, and leaving out the kids they think are inferior. Against Rush and Hannity and O'Reilly. Against the schoolyard bullies.

Because we now have a Prez who will be his own man, who is not afraid to try to bring the parties and the politics together for the benefit of -- GASP! -- not just one party, but for as many Americans as possible, dems and cons, reps and libs . . . and all the people in between, which, frankly, is most of us.

A playground that's fair to all.

I hope. And that is the hope of the true Americans who elected him: for a better country and a better world, not just a better life for a select few: the conservative elite.

The people who question authority; the people who challenge the status quo; the individuals who refuse to follow any party line; those who will not allow themselves to be cooed and wooed by the soothing babble of so-called leaders, who in reality, are party puppets; these are the people -- the individuals, the free thinkers -- whom I will side with.

Because the answer to uninformed opinion is not to try and stifle it or to take it away, but to add more voices, more informed opinion. To make a noise. To stir up a shitstorm.

To fight.

It's the only way to beat down a bully.

So I ask you to read. Everything. To ask questions. To challenge. To go outside your comfort zone. If you're a lib, go read the Drudge Report. If you're a con, go read the Huffington Post.

I will do both. And I'm also going to read ThinkProgress.org. They keep track of the crap America has to put up with.

And I ask you to fight. To be vocal.

Because the bullshit has to stop. The bullying has to stop.

The hate, the sheer political stupidity, has to stop.

An ignorant America, under one party, one policy, will never, ever work again. We need a better America. And Americans really don't need more opinions -- we need informed opinions.

Spread the words, no matter how simple or how eloquent.

Fight the hate.

"Be the example. Spread hope."
Cat Cora
Starbucks cup # 272

Under the Moons of Mars

This is partially a reprint from my first blog, Ragtop Days, Cabernet Nights. I've rewritten it and updated it some . . .


It is one of the most beautiful, wondrous, evocative titles I have ever encountered.

Under the Moons of Mars.

It was the first novel by the creator of Tarzan, published in All-Story, a pulp magazine, 98 years ago.

And why, in 2009, does anyone still give a damn?

Let's start at the beginning. My beginning.

I have in my hands a hardback copy of A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Perhaps Frazetta's most influential and impressive painting.

I wrote my name in my books back then, when I got this book, marveling endlessly at the machismo and the sexuality of the Frank Frazetta cover painting (which has since become an iconic classic of fantasy art). A rubber stamp with my name and address, my initials, encircled, like my own personal logo, my name, and the year the book arrived in the mail from the Science Fiction Book Club: 1971, in the fall. 8th grade. Thomas Eaton Junior High.

Carl Loveland is the villain of this tale -- one of my best friends through Eaton, and then Hampton High, and then on to ODU. It was his devious machinations that led me to join the SFBC -- "10 books for 10 cents" I believe was the initial come-on -- and his glowing review of A Princess of Mars that made this novel my very first purchase. Plus, he got a free book for every member he convinced to join.

It is because of A Princess of Mars that I became a writer. It was because of the sheer power of its storytelling. It was because of its epic, romantic magic.

It's the story of John Carter, a former Confederate Captain from Virginia, now prospecting with a friend in the hills of Arizona in 1866. He and his friend are attacked by Apaches, and after falling victim to a mysterious drowsiness in a cave in the hills, Carter awakens to find himself on Mars, the red planet, named after the Roman god of war.

Burroughs wrote best at the beginning of his career. A mere review or even a synopsis would do this novel a huge injustice. But Burroughs' storytelling -- even though his language was formal, to say the least -- was fired with energy, crackling with believability, even as John Carter fought four-armed green Martians, rode ten-legged Martian horses called thoats, and battled great white apes with four arms. Only a twelve or thirteen year old could read Princess and fall completely under its spell. Which I did, and which I will always be under.

The first illustration of Burroughs' Green Martians, from All Story, 1911

Tarzan of the Apes, created only a year later by Burroughs, will forever be his most popular character. (Of all the fictional characters in all the world, only five will forever be remembered by schoolchildren across the globe: Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, Tarzan and Mickey Mouse.) but John Carter is arguably his finest creation, and perhaps his most influential. For a novel, published originally as Under the Moons of Mars under a pseudonym, Norman Bean (it was supposed to be Normal Bean, as in "Normal Being," because Burroughs didn't want readers to think he was crazy for coming up with stuff like this), it went on to incredible public acclaim (albeit not literary acclaim)

The 1917 dust jacket of Princess' first edition.

What Burroughs accidentally created with Princess was one of the first science fiction epics, called by scholars a scientific romance. Its origins may lie with a British novel, Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, reprinted in the '60s by Ace as Gullivar of Mars, by Edwin Lester Arnold, but no scholar can determine if Burroughs ever read it...or how, for that matter, as it was only published and distributed in Great Britain. (Personally, I believe the origins of John Carter go farther back in time and deeper in Burroughs' subconsciousness, and I may write on that another time.) More importantly is Burroughs' influence. A Princess of Mars and the heroes he later created have influenced writers, artists and creators for almost 100 years, from contemporaries such as Robert E. Howard and Otis Adelbert Kline, to the late Lin Carter, Michael Moorcock, Philip Jose Farmer, and more than I could list.

John Carter was the macho hero we all wanted to be -- and his princess was the babe we all wanted to find, and save, and fall in love with: Dejah Thoris...one of the most frequently drawn characters by painters, illustrators and comic book artists. (Go ahead: Google "Dejah Thoris" and do an image search. The best are by Frank Cho and Adam Hughes, and are decidedly NSFW).

Dejah Thoris, the incomparable princess of Mars, as interpreted by Gene Gonzales

It was Burroughs and A Princess of Mars that led me to create my forthcoming trilogy, The Enigma Club -- in much the same way that Burroughs found impetus to write Princess: he was bored at work -- and he has given me almost four decades of wonderful dreams and adventures. This link DEJAH THORIS will take you to the free e-text of A Princess of Mars. Copy it all. (Control-A., then control-C, then open Word and control-P. You can do it!) Print it if you have to, or go to Barnes & Noble and pick up the omnibus edition of Princess and its two immediate sequels, The Gods of Mars and The Warlord of Mars (both of which are also available free online at Project Gutenberg).

A new omnibus edition of the first three Mars novels -- which make up an unofficial trilogy -- will appear later this year, illustrated by comics illustrator Thomas Yeates. Disney has the rights to bring Princess to the screen. It's currently titled John Carter of Mars (I and the true fans-at-large want the title to return to A Princess of Mars or the original Under the Moons of Mars) and is now being adapted by Andrew Stanton, who just won a Golden Globe for Wall*E. It will combine live action footage with considerable CGI and is scheduled to be in theaters in 2012. (But if you can't wait that long, go to YouTube and search for John Carter.) Here's the latest info from i09 and Ain't It Cool News:

Wall-E director Andrew Stanton has been talking about his upcoming adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars, clarifying what we should expect to see in the movie - and in how many dimensions.

Stanton spilled many beans - and corrected many rumors - during the Santa Barbara Film Festival this weekend. He revealed that, despite what many thought, Carter would not be a Pixar movie, but instead come out under the Disney banner, even though it will be created using a lot of Pixar talent. The script is already in its second draft, and Stanton expects the movie to have a shorter development time than his animated movies due to his long-standing love of the original stories; he joked that he's been developing the movie in his head since childhood.

The look of the film will be "very real," and not highly-stylized, due to what Stanton sees as the way the original story has been ripped off by many different movies over the years; it'll also be a faithful retelling, with Carter remaining the Civil War soldier that he was in Burroughs' original. Again, despite what many have been saying, the film will be both live action and not shot in 3-D (although he feels that Disney may end up disagreeing with him on that latter point), and he's suitably daunted by the prospect of live action directing, commenting that,

It is huge, it is exciting, it scares the crap out of me. It’s either going to make me or break me.

We're betting on the former; Stanton is a very talented man, and this continues to look like the ideal movie for him.

Mars, monsters, swordfights, and the love of semi-nude Martian babes. Magic, I tell you. Magic!

And if they ever do bring back National Lampoon...

. . . Jason Yungbluth needs to run the comics section . . .

Go here to see his work, and here's a short interview with him about his parody of Peanuts, Weapon Brown.

Double Secret Probation

I can't watch Mad TV: I don't think it's funny; just dumb. Comedy for teens. Everybody I know loves The Office, but I find very little of it funny; mostly it's farcical, and I don't respond to farce. Farce makes fun of everyone, including the characters you're supposed to feel sympathetic toward; and I think, the viewer, as well. I much prefer 30 Rock; the characters have an edge, and the jokes are actually funny. Likewise Frasier, the classic The Dick Van Dyke Show, Cheers, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Tales From the Crypt, even; and the best of Saturday Night Live.

It seems like getting a good laugh whenever you want one has gone the way of fizzies in the fountain.

America has been on Double Secret Probation for a long time, now. The funniest, grown-up magazine of the 1970s has disappeared, gone into hiding. It was Mad for adults. It was Laugh-In: the Next Generation. It was outlaw. It was anti-establishment -- with tits. It was dirty. It was sick. It was wild, and rude, and on the mark, and contemporary, and puerile, and pornographic and wonderful.

And it's gone.

I miss National Lampoon.


Saturday Night Live, on occasion, still resonates with echoes of its Lampoon roots under the aegis of Michael O'Donoghue, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Anne Beatts, Chevy Chase and a few others. And National Lampoon (Inc.) still exists as a company that occasionally makes direct-to-dvd features catering to the high-school-hijinx market. There's even a website, but it's a sad, pale shadow of the magazine's past.

The Powers That Be need to bring it back.

The name came from its founders, who had been writers/creators at the Harvard Lampoon, the campus humor magazine. They brought that same sophomoric sensibility to a national level in 1970 -- but it quickly became something else. It became a national voice.

I was eleven when NatLamp first appeared on the racks. I remember leafing through it sneakily at the West End Pharmacy in Hampton -- they had a wonderful newsstand there, where I bought comic books every week for the first part of my literary life, and occasionally sneaked peeks at "dirty" magazines, such as Stag, Playboy, Rolling Stone (they said fuck occasionally) and, in 1970, National Lampoon. (It was also the place where I bought every issue of the monthly newspaper that was a rival to Forrest Ackerman's Famous Monsters of Filmland: The Monster Times.)

First issue

That first cover may not look very sexy today, but in 1970, it was not only hot, but it was . . . weird. That labeled it taboo in Hampton, Virginia, and in almost every other town in America.

That's probably why the mag caught on. It wasn't normal. It was bad.

I sneaked peeks at it every now and then, looking especially for the black and white Foto Funnies, where some big-breasted chick would usually expose herself in some pre- or post-coital comedy sequence.

Finally, age 15, after a few years of buying Playboy here and there (I started at 13), I screwed up the courage to buy National Lampoon. I had to. I had just started reading the books of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the preeminent cover artist for Burroughs and the Robert E. Howard Conan books -- at that time -- was Frank Frazetta. And this cover . . .


. . . was rude, sacrilegious, sf and funny at the same time. And Frazetta. When this issue, devoted to Science Fiction, came out, I had to have it, no matter what my parents thought. I didn't care.

My favorite Martian joke from that issue:

What's 33?
Martian 69.

Man, I still love that!

In those first, five, best years -- it kind of reminds you of SNL, doesn't it? Those years really were the best, weren't they? -- National Lampoon captured the essence of the '70s, and created the cynical spark of today's comedy. Nixon jokes, Agnew hatred; anti-establishment, anti-pedestrian (read that as anti-Muggle) humor; sex, death; homo vampires; Tarzan of the Cows, sexy Nazis, Gahan Wilson cartoons; Son-O-God Comics; headlines: Experts Find Unexplained Gaps in Nixon State of the Union Address; Desperate Dems Delve for Diminutive Dingus (a question for Senator Kennedy: "What would be your reaction, Senator, if the convention drafted you?" Answer: "I'll drive off that bridge when I come to it." The ads for posters, black light posters, nude posters; six 8-track tapes for 99¢; JOB rolling papers . . . "Pinto's First Lay," by Chris Miller . . . part of the genesis of Animal House; "First Blowjob" (one of my favorite short stories . . . padiddle); "Young 'Dr.' Pinky." The Encyclopedia, almost completely written by SNL's Michael O'Donoghue.


My God, it's a legacy of humor.

And where is it now?

Where is printed humor now?

Lampoon deserves to return as a magazine -- cutting edge, like The Onion, or The Daily Show on paper, or Saturday Night Live without the censors. This is the 21st Century. We need comedy that's razor-fine, rude, crude, in the mood, and completely politically incorrect -- but instead of biting humor that dares to rip the throat out of its well-deserving targets, all we have are Ellen, and lolcats, and The World According to Jim. SNL -- even though I love it and watch every new episode -- is a weak-assed mirror of 2009's pussy-whipped cultural mores: funny here and there, but not daring to break the walls or create the comedic paradigms that SNL 1975 and National Lampoon did 34+ years ago.

Lame.

Nowadays, say the words "National Lampoon" and they won't remember the magazine. National. Lampoon. Just words. What's a lampoon, anyway?

So, say, "National Lampoon" about the movies, and people will eventually light up and remember, Vacation, Christmas Vacation, or Chevy Chase.

But the first and best National Lampoon movie was Animal House.

Based on true stories, then fictionalized, by NL writer Chris Miller, Animal House . . .

[is] all a fiction, though it's based loosely on the college and/or high school experiences of the three writers, Harold Ramis, Chris Miller, and Doug Kenney--particularly the last two.

The character "Pinto" is based on two different earlier characters which appeared in National Lampoon: First, his "real" name in the movie--Larry Kroger--is also the name of the "owner" of the National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody, the creation of Doug Kenney and P.J. O'Rourke. Larry Kroger (in the yearbook parody) is clearly Kenney's alter ego, and Kenney did, of course, become an editor of National Lampoon. (Initially, the movie was to be set in the high school of the yearbook parody, until they decided to incorporate Miller's material--see below.) Kenney's "First Lay Comics" (from the February 1974 issue) and "First High Comics" (from the January 1975 issue) were also adapted for scenes in the film.

Larry Kroger's nickname in the movie, "Pinto," was originally the nickname of the protagonist in several short stories by Chris Miller, "The Night of the Seven Fires" (from the October 1974 issue) and "Pinto's First Lay" (from the September 1975 issue). (There was also a third story: "Good Sports" in the December 1989 issue.) These stories were based on his frat-house days at Dartmouth College, and the "Pinto" character, always referred to only by nickname, is presumably Miller's younger self.

Kenney's "Kroger" and Miller's "Pinto" are melded into one character in Animal House, freely adapting the two writers' works into one story. Some of the other characters also came from the yearbook parody (e.g., Faun Rosenberg) and Miller's stories (e.g., Otter). Not sure where Blutarsky came from other than Belushi himself.

Both Kenney and Miller had small parts in the film as members of the Delta House fraternity--Kenney played "Stork" (the nerd) and Miller played a suave-looking guy named "Hardbar."

That's all info I found on a very large website. They have a wealth of Animal House trivia. Go there. Also, buy Chris Miller's semi-true book:

Somehow I missed the 30-year anniversary of National Lampoon's Animal House last year. The dvd is on the shelves, so I'll go pick it up. And I'll remember Bluto and D-Day and the other Deltas, and double secret probation, along with the National Lampoon Newspaper Parody and all the letters from the editors, The Job of Sex, and the story that inspired Vacation . . .

We're really missing out. We need National Lampoon -- and we need it now!

Remember the Sci-Fi '70s?

NERD ALERT! NERD ALERT!

I hate the term sci-fi -- it's a holdout from the days of hi-fi and has a juvenile connotation to the public at large -- but most people won't know what I mean by F & SF, so sci-fi it is.

Here are a couple of vector art pieces I found on i09, a daily sci-fi (damn it) blog. They're by artist Dusty Abell, and you can find more of his work on DeviantArt.com. They bring back a lot of fun memories; even though I was mostly in my teens during this time period, if it was sci-fi, I watched it, even if it was sandwiched between Archie and Scooby Doo.


Abell is obviously a fan and has drawn these from the heart. Unfortuantely, I don't remember all of them. In the version below, I circled the figures or ships that I don't recognize. Please let me know who or what they are if you remember them.

And here are the heroes of '70s Saturday Morning shows...

Most of them I can't place at all, except for Isis, Capt. Marvel (Shazam) and Land of the Lost. I think the Wonder Twins are right in the center, but I never watched that show, so I don't know for sure.

Have fun reminiscing. Me? I won't be entirely happy until Johnny Depp remakes Dark Shadows . . .

Superman 1941 -- Better Animation than Disney

When I had the cash, way back when, I used to go to a bunch of science fiction and fantasy conventions. No, I'd never dress up in fan costumes -- I never wanted to. I wanted to go to hear the authors and the filmmakers talk about their work. I wanted to see movies and tv shows I'd never seen before. I wanted to see and buy art. I wanted books and posters and prints and t-shirts from the dealers room.

It was at a Balticon in the early '80s when I first learned that Superman cartoons had been produced in the 1940s. It wasn't even in the film room where I saw them; it was in an aisle outside the dealers room. Somebody had set up a tv and a vcr and was showing a few of them for the crowd.

I stood there transfixed until, during the third cartoon, Maria tugged me away. The animation was elegant and stylized -- clearly a period piece -- and highly realistic, yet strangely stereotypical at the same time. Even then, at first glance, I knew that the artists who made those cartoons were better than Disney's at that time.


Paramount, who had the film rights to Superman at that time, paid the Max Fleischer Studio an exorbitant amount of money to make that series of cartoons, and it shows on the screen. The animation is without parallel; and if the stories seem hokey -- and they are -- then the quality of the art makes up for it. Subtle shadings; special effects. Superman didn't fly -- he leapt far distances in a semblance of flying. And the the theme music! If you watch the cartoons all in one sitting, I guarantee you won't be able to get that theme out of your head for days.

The Superman emblem from the cartoons, now available on a t-shirt.

The Fleischer Studios merged with another studio during production and they finished the series in 1942. The cartoons have been available for a long time in unofficial formats, both dvd and vhs, but the prints have been scratchy, flawed and seem amateurish. Warner Home Video eventually cleaned them up and restored them, and placed the cartoons in several Superman dvd sets during the last years, combining them with the Christopher Reeve movies. This April . . . well, here's the info from Wikipedia:

On April 7th, 2009, yet another release will be made, this time a collection of all the cartoons released by Warner Home Video as the first authorized collection from the original masters, titled Max Fleischer's Superman: 1941-1942 with a suggested price at $26.99; the set will include one new special feature in the form of "The Man, The Myth, Superman" featurette, along with an old special feature seen in the Superman II 2006 DVD release entitled "First Flight: The Fleischer Superman Series".

What are you waiting for? Go reserve your set. While you're at it, get one of these, too:


These shows from the '90s are better than any of the movies made so far, including The Dark Night.

Print versus Online? No Contest yet...

This excellent blog post, written by Alan Mutter, a former newspaper exec and currently Managing Partner of Tapit Partners, explains why most newspapers can't just shut down their operations overnight and switch over to online-only.

It's all about revenue -- big surprise, right? -- and it ties in nicely with my conclusions in "The Death of the Times-Dispatch," specifically this part:

So here's the thing: here's why they're even trying to keep the RTD going, despite its inevitable funeral, despite that it's dead already and they keep kicking the corpse around: because they have to. As bad as the situation is, the paper is still bringing in revenue -- just not a profit. Online advertising is nowhere near replacing the revenue that print advertising brings in. Sure, they'll keep reducing the staff as circulation drops lower and lower; they'll redesign the look not to make a better product, but to cut page count, and thereby newsprint costs. They'll save money where they can, but revenue will continue to fall . . . because the core product, the newspaper, has been replaced by news on television and the Internet.

That's why the purchase of Richmond.com was considered a sound investment: a massive increase of page views and potentially an increase of ad revenue.

And the bow ties know the RTD will eventually be forced to cease publication, probably sooner than later -- hence the new commandment from on high, introduced last month to the sales staffs, of Web-First. Starting at that last-minute November meeting, with an imperative to begin in January 2009, all sales efforts are to push online advertising first, and newspaper advertising second.

Online is now priority one. I repeat: sales emphasis is on the Web first, print second.

That has to tell you something.

Make sure you go back to Newsosaur for Part Two.

Chew on THIS, Obama!

Click to enlarge

From the Things You Haven't Seen Before files: a portrait of President Barack Obama that's made of 12,784 gumballs. Artist Franz Spohn plus volunteers in Ohio created the portrait Monday, and it eventually will tour through Ripley's Believe It or Not museums (after a brief stay in Orlando at the Ripley warehouse). An exact schedule has not been determined, but we'll post again when it's scheduled to appear at the International Drive location.

Spohn uses computer technology to design the art -- each gumball breaks down as a pixel. Volunteers put gumballs into clear tubes which are mounted into place. Spohn has similar portraits under his belt -- of Robert Ripley, actor Dean Cain and Michael Jackson, which are on display at Ripley museums worldwide.

I've got nothing of significance to add, except this was printed in the Orlando Sentinel.

My Non-Adventure with a Playboy Editor

I saw Jamie Malanowski's name on the Huffington Post, where he is one of their most interesting and funny columnists/bloggers. He is also the managing editor of Playboy, and I am exceedingly jealous.

Jamie's name on Huff Po triggered a memory of meeting him -- I thought -- back in the very early '80s at a science fiction convention in Baltimore. I did a bio search of him, and sure enough -- he's from the Baltimore area.

I emailed him.

HI Jamie,

Saw your latest post on Huffington, and it jogged a memory. Forgive me if this was not you and if the question sounds strange, but did you ever attend science fiction conventions in the Baltimore area? In the late '70s or early '80s I once met a Jamie Malanowski at a Balticon. I may even have corresponded with him a few times after that -- I can't remember. When I saw in one of your bios that you are from Baltimore, it made me start to wonder.

Anyway, even if you aren't, you've had a great literary career so far and should be proud. I'll be picking up "The Coup" as soon as possible.

Take care,
Rusty

Then Jamie was nice enough to write back:

Rusty--

Thanks for the note.

Well, I wish I could say yes, but I don't recall attending a sci-fi convention in Baltimore (or anywhere). I did go to the car show at the Civic Center once. Besides, by the mid-seventies, I had gone on to college in Philadelphia.

But--did we have fun?

Let me know if you liked The Coup!

So:

Hi Jamie,

I appreciate your quick response. Of course, we had a great time! Obviously you don't remember the guy dressed as Gandalf, shooting fireballs up toward the ceiling of the restaurant in the Hunt Valley Inn. And how could you forget the Klingon hookers we partied with in the pool?

Keep writing, and take care --
Rus

And he came back with:

Dude, that was my wedding reception.

So I just finished his 2007 novel, The Coup. Unbelievably, the blurbs on the dust jacket and on Jamie's website get it right -- this is a biting, yet all too possible, satire on Washington politics and the power of public perception, and it has not received the attention it deserves.

Imagine a President who is a cross between George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and imagine a Vice President with the smarts and charm of Al Gore and the ruthless tenacity of Dick Cheney, and you would have the Presidential pair in Malanowski's The Coup. Godwin Pope, the VP, is sick of the President's good ol' boy, philandering ways. Almost by accident a plot forms in his mind -- a viable way to move Jack Mahone out of the White House so Godwin can slide on in.

The plot is full of wry twists, and Malanowski's portrait of a conniving, yet thoroughly likable VP is the anchor of the novel. You don't want to like this bastard, but you do -- especially when he falls in love with a journalist, uses her to move his plan forward, yet still quotes Marlowe in a love note: "Come with me and be my love."

My favorite image: the denouement in the Oval Office. Read it -- I won't spoil it. But the image is rich and precisely perfect.

My favorite line:

Darkness fell on Washington, and like Dracula's little children of the night, the pundits came out to feed on the weak and dying.

Visit Jamie Malanowski's website. Tell him I sent you. You can order The Coup from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Holy Sphinxter, Batman!

As a lifelong Batfan, it brings joy to my heart that one of my favorite villains from the 1960s Batman series is finally being brought to life in the Batman mythos of the comics.

As portrayed by veteran character actor Victor Buono, King Tut wanted only the riches and glory that he believed he deserved. In today's Batman comic books, though, there is little room for broad strokes of humor, and the new King Tut is considerably darker, much buffer, and apparently quite murderous.

Still looks like fun, though.

Go here for an article/interview about the King Tut issues, starting this month in Batman Confidential #26.
However, my favorite pharaoh:

"No, honey, the newspaper isn't dead. It's just sleeping."

Editor and Publisher is the primary trade magazine for the newspaper industry, so it comes as no surprise that that the last gasp of righteous indignation, coming shortly before the industry's inevitable death-rattle, would be announced in their pages, issuing from the hollow mouths of flacks.

The piece below is most likely a press release masquerading as an article, and you can read it in its pristine entirety here. I say pristine because I reprint the article below, with my own comments very obviously interspersed throughout. I think it's the best way to refute the publishers' plaintive cries of "There's nothing wrong here!" and "We ain't going anywhere!"

I can barely hear them when they yell with their heads buried like that.

Thanks go to a wonderful friend in the industry who sent this to me, who has far higher hopes for newspapers surviving than I.

Newspaper Execs Launch Group to 'Fight Back'

By William B. Ketter

Published: February 02, 2009 11:55 PM ET

NEW YORK

Newspapers and their online offspring combined are more popular than ever imagined and yet media reports nearly always paint a portrait of an industry gasping for air in the digital age.

The "combined reach" of print newspapers and their online counterparts is a considerable number. The Times-Dispatch is getting almost 9 million hits a month. This does not mean that either format is "popular." As for media reports, all we have to do is look in the pages of the RTD at the local layoffs and the problems occurring at other newspapers. Since my December post about "The Death of the Times-Dispatch," the Minneapolis Star Tribune filed for bankruptcy, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer went up for sale, Gannett will start requiring their employees to take unpaid vacations, and the New York Times itself got a stay of execution due to a huge cash infusion by a Mexican financier.

This wrongheaded perception (See above) stems from the economic recession that’s affected all advertising-based businesses, and from the myth that newspapers no longer attract the public support they once enjoyed. Myth? MYTH??? Yeth. Well, let's see. News on the internet is considered free by the public. News on your cell phones is considered free. News on tv is considered free. NPR and radio is free. In an age where people readily admit to watching four or more hours of television each day, yet they claim that "I don't have time to read the newspaper," means that there are a lot of overwhelming reasons the industry is dying. 1. the nature of news delivery has changed, and the newspaper industry canNOT keep up, and 2. the public still has to pay for each copy of a newspaper...and prices are still going up as content gets cut.

But the biggest contributing factor to the distorted picture of the industry’s condition just might be us, to paraphrase Pogo, the comic strip character. Pogo? Freaking Pogo? You're quoting a "funny animal" newspaper comic strip that was laid to rest in 1975? That's definitely the way to reach today's audience! Use topical references!

With that irony in mind (Thank you for explaining. Your audience certainly would never figure that one out.), a group of concerned newspaper executives has decided to fight back against the misrepresentation of newspapers and their continuing importance to the public, to the marketplace and to democracy. The name for the grassroots crusade is the “Newspaper Project.”

There's nothing so successful as originality. "The Newspaper Project." Hmmm. I never could have come up with that. Maybe it's still 1975 where these editors' offices are...

They’ve created a Web site – www.newspaperproject.org – that will feature stories and commentary about the value of newspapers, and share tips on how they can cope with the tough times.

Monday, the group will launch a series of print and online ads telling, among other facts, the story of how American newspapers and their Web sites daily reach 100 million people, more than watched Sunday’s Super Bowl. Really, that's disingenuous. It's a statistic that means absolutely nothing. Apples and oranges.

The ads will appear in major newspapers (Always a wise move: preach to the converted. But wait -- aren't you looking for a new audience? Oh, right -- to do that, you'd have to buy air time on tv and radio...), including the New York Times and the Washington Post, and also in scores of community dailies, including the 89 owned by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc.

“The roar of misinformation swirling around newspapers is deafening,” said Donna Barrett, CNHI’s president and CEO. “We must cut through the noise to set the record straight.”

The group’s message, said Barrett, is straightforward:

-- Newspapers are very much alive and growing when you consider the print and online audience together. (When and only when you count them together.)And they talk to far more people than their radio, television and Internet competitors. (The people they talk to is the Boomer Generation and their parents.)

-- Newspapers have earned the public’s trust because they employ professional journalists to verify news for truth, accuracy and context, and they are usually the first source of local news.
There are so many things wrong with this one statement that a book could be written about it. Sure, newspapers are generally trustworthy -- but that does not mean that people really trust them. Virginians generally regard the Times-Dispatch as the most conservative paper in the state -- yet the paper regularly get complaints that it is a left-wing radical publication. This isn't just the RTD -- it's every paper. Newspapers are not trusted the way the editors want us to believe. Also, newspapers are usually not the first source of local news, but they may be the best and most comprehensive source. Marketing surveys show that newspaper readers (again, aged 40 and older) want more local news in the paper...even to the point of reporting on little Timmy's Pee Wee football game. Seriously, in the 21st century, can an appropriate venue be created for news like this? Maybe THIS is what the RTD and other papers are evolving into...

- Advertisers continue to invest in newspapers because they deliver results. They still move goods and services more reliably than other forms of promotion.
Advertising is so far down it crashed Media General's Tampa paper in just one month, with a revenue loss of of $84 million, from which Tampa could not recover. Advertising is down across the country, primarily because of the recession, but also because of the real estate implosion, lackluster auto sales, everything -- frankly, advertising is not looked on well by retailers. Especially the newspapers, because it costs so much.

-- Newspapers remain essential to our democratic system of government, serving as a watchdog against crime and corruption, and a guide dog for information that allows the public to make informed decisions on the issues of the day.
You know, this is completely true. And I wish that the public cared about it. But the best functions of the newspaper just don't matter when the mainstream audience is ignoring you. We live in an attention deficit disorder society, and newspapers are perceived as War and Peace. The audience is leaving us far behind and scrambling for the latest technology. Instead, newspapers quote Pogo.

“Newspapers don’t have an audience problem,” said Barrett, who is also president of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association. “Newspapers have a revenue problem, driven primarily by the recession.” Son, I think your bow tie is tied too tight -- you need some oxygen getting to that brain.

In addition to Barrett, leaders of the public outreach campaign include Brian P. Tierney, publisher and CEO of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News; Randy Siegel, president and publisher of Parade Publications, and Jay Smith, former president of Cox Newspapers.

“A lot of people, both in our business as well as media decision-makers, are frustrated with the lack of perspective and the inability to get the full story (about newspapers) out,” said Tierney in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer.

“Because journalism is so essential for a democracy, we really need to tell this story ourselves in a more aggressive way. Rather than wait for everybody to get together, an insurgent group of folks decided to do it on our own.”

In doing so, the group said, it is not diminishing the serious challenges facing newspapers, other media and every other business during the current economic ferment. Nah, they're just glossing over it. Pretend it's not, and maybe it'll go away.

“We acknowledge the challenges facing the newspaper industry in today’s rapidly changing media world,” said Barrett. “However, we reject the notion that newspapers – and the valuable content that newspaper journalists provide – have no future.”

Barrett said newspapers are adjusting to the economic and industry conditions, making changes aimed at keeping them profitable and informative. This statement says a LOT about the industry, and what's wrong with it, from the overall product to upper management. Newspapers do not create and they are not innovative -- they are reactionary, bobbing on the wakes that innovators have left behind them.

There’s no question newspaper content and appearance are being reexamined and rapidly overhauled to meet smaller budgets and the changing requirements of the public. Plain and simple horseshit. Oh, they're changing, with one eye on public demand and the other on the rising costs of production. Seriously, who's going to lose in this equation? The public.

Management structures and sales practices are also changing, with the emphasis on fewer executives and more soldiers in the trenches. Cutting middle management and getting sales reps to scramble, selling internet advertising first and print second. Why? Because the future is online, and print has no future.

But what hasn’t changed – and what the Newspaper Project wants to burn into the public psyche – is the primary function of newspapers: to inform and to connect readers to the world around them. Can the newspaper do this in the 21st century?

Nobody does that better than newspapers, and because of this crucial function, they expect to weather both the recession and the digital age, despite the media pundits who bellow otherwise.

Postscript to the Superbowl

Party. Beer. Lip-synched national anthem. Chili. Spicy. Nachos. Beer. Widescreen plasma tv. Nice. Commercials. Trek. Sleestaks. New friends. A woman emailed my wife and said I was fantastic. I love 20-somethings!

Football comes back in 6 1/2 months. Go Fins!

Rush Limbaugh: Radical Clown

On January 23, President Obama -- I can't believe how much I like saying that -- made some disparaging comments about radio host Rush Limbaugh. You can read a New York Post piece all about it.

Bimbo the Clown, a puppet.

I'm an independent. I will listen to both sides -- how I wish there were truly three sides or more! -- and I will vote for the candidate whom I think will do the best job. I've voted Democrat and Republican, for and against. I will not be dictated to by any party. In the words of the ultimate politician, Groucho Marx, "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member."

I've listened to Rush Limbaugh before, at first because I was told he could be funny. I had heard about him in the year or so before Bill Clinton was elected President, and Limbo did everything he could to derail his chances. In the subsequent eight years, Limbo became more and more spiteful and hateful. He would say anything to hurt Clinton, whether it was true or not, and I eventually clicked him off permanently.

Limbo, the clown and Conservative puppet

Limbo's response to President Obama is chronicled in the National Review Online, the online version of the ultra-conservative National Review magazine. You can click on the link, but I'll reproduce the piece here, in its entirety:

Limbaugh Responds to Obama [Byron York]

According to an account in the New York Post, President Barack Obama yesterday told Republican leaders, "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done." With George W. Bush now off the stage, it may be that Obama and some of his fellow Democrats view Limbaugh, and not John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, or any other elected official, as the true leader of the Republican opposition. This morning I asked Rush for his thoughts on all this, and here is his response:

There are two things going on here. One prong of the Great Unifier's plan is to isolate elected Republicans from their voters and supporters by making the argument about me and not about his plan. He is hoping that these Republicans will also publicly denounce me and thus marginalize me. And who knows? Are ideological and philosophical ties enough to keep the GOP loyal to their voters? Meanwhile, the effort to foist all blame for this mess on the private sector continues unabated when most of the blame for this current debacle can be laid at the feet of the Congress and a couple of former presidents. And there is a strategic reason for this.

Secondly, here is a combo quote from the meeting:

"If we don't get this done we (the Democrats) could lose seats and I could lose re-election. But we can't let people like Rush Limbaugh stall this. That's how things don't get done in this town."

To make the argument about me instead of his plan makes sense from his perspective. Obama's plan would buy votes for the Democrat Party, in the same way FDR's New Deal established majority power for 50 years of Democrat rule, and it would also simultaneously seriously damage any hope of future tax cuts. It would allow a majority of American voters to guarantee no taxes for themselves going forward. It would burden the private sector and put the public sector in permanent and firm control of the economy. Put simply, I believe his stimulus is aimed at re-establishing "eternal" power for the Democrat Party rather than stimulating the economy because anyone with a brain knows this is NOT how you stimulate the economy. If I can be made to serve as a distraction, then there is that much less time debating the merits of this TRILLION dollar debacle.

Obama was angry that Merrill Lynch used $1.2 million of TARP money to remodel an executive suite. Excuse me, but didn't Merrill have to hire a decorator and contractor? Didn't they have to buy the new furnishings? What's the difference in that and Merrill loaning that money to a decorator, contractor and goods supplier to remodel Warren Buffet's office? Either way, stimulus in the private sector occurs. Are we really at the point where the bad PR of Merrill getting a redecorated office in the process is reason to smear them? How much money will the Obamas spend redecorating the White House residence? Whose money will be spent? I have no problem with the Obamas redoing the place. It is tradition. 600 private jets flown by rich Democrats flew into the Inauguration. That's fine but the auto execs using theirs is a crime? In both instances, the people on those jets arrived in Washington wanting something from Washington, not just good will.

If I can be made to serve as a distraction, then there is that much less time debating the merits of the trillion dollar debacle.

One more thing, Byron. Your publication and website have documented Obama's ties to the teachings of Saul Alinksy while he was community organizing in Chicago. Here is Rule 13 of Alinksy's Rules for Radicals:

"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

The last item is the most interesting to me. I had heard of Alinsky before, but never his Rules For Radicals, which I immediately Googled. Here they are, reprinted in concise form -- Alinsky wrote a book about them, but this will give you the idea:

Alinsky's Rules for Radicals

By Craig Miyamoto, APR, Fellow PRSA

(This is an expanded version of the 2000 Third Quarter issue of Public Relations Strategies, a quarterly publication of Miyamoto Strategic Counsel)

To paraphrase some sage advice, "keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer." If your business or organization ever becomes a target of radical activists, it will be extremely helpful to know what strategies of attack will used against you. Short of having spies infiltrate their organization - a practice that is sure to be found out and exposed to your discredit - it would help to study their methods.

Known as the "father of modern American radicalism," Saul D. Alinsky (1909-1972) developed strategies and tactics that take the enormous, unfocused emotional energy of grassroots groups and transform it into effective anti-government and anti-corporate activism. Activist organizations teach his ideas widely taught today as a set of model behaviors, and they use these principles to create an emotional commitment to victory - no matter what.

Grassroots pressure on large organizations is reality, and there is every indication that it will grow. Because the conflicts manifest in high-profile public debate and often-panicked decision-making, studying Alinsky's rules will help organizations develop counteractive strategies that can level the playing field.

Governments and corporations have inherent weaknesses. And, time and again, they repeat mistakes that other large organizations have made, even repeating their OWN mistakes. Alinsky's out-of-print book - "Rules for Radicals" - illustrates why opposition groups take on large organizations with utter glee, and why these governments and corporations fail to win.

Large organizations have learned to stonewall and not empower activists. In other words, they try to ignore radical activists and are never as committed to victory as their opposition is committed to defeating them. Result? They are unprepared for the hailstorm of brutal tactics that severely damage their reputation and send them running with their tails between their legs.

Some of these rules are ruthless, but they work. Here are the rules to be aware of:

RULE 1: "Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have." Power is derived from 2 main sources - money and people. "Have-Nots" must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)

RULE 2: "Never go outside the expertise of your people." It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. (Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don't address the "real" issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)

RULE 3: "Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy." Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

RULE 4: "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules." If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity's very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)

RULE 5: "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)

RULE 6: "A good tactic is one your people enjoy." They'll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They're doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid "un-fun" activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)

RULE 7: "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag." Don't become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)

RULE 8: "Keep the pressure on. Never let up." Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)

RULE 9: "The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself." Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists' minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)

RULE 10: "If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive." Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management's wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)

RULE 11: "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative." Never let the enemy score points because you're caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)

RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)

I am absolutely astounded at Limbo's acknowledgment of Alinsky's Rules -- not because he knows about them -- he ought to, since this stuff is his stock in trade -- but that, item by item, the tactics, as outlined by Alinsky, were used against Bill and Hilary Clinton for eight years by Limbaugh, Fox News, the National Review, and every other conservative mouthpiece.

He just gave away the right wing's modus operandi.

In other words, because the Democrats held control then, the conservatives had to become the new radicals. Hilary was absolutely right about her "vast right wing conspiracy" -- ultraconservatives were rich, organized and angry -- and they weren't about to lose to a couple of hicks from Arkansas.

Expect more of this behavior in the years to come -- which I predict will be eight years. If the actions of the right wing have shown us anything since the election of Bill Clinton, it's that they will do anything to regain power . . . and that they are sore losers.

And Limbo once again gets things wrong.

As far as I can discover, Alinsky only wrote twelve rules for radicals.

Thirteen, I think, is Limbo's unlucky number.

The Dark Knight's Darkest Day

Breaks my heart to see something like this happen to one of the good guys . . .


From the Tampa Tribune:

Holy Legal Defense! Batman Fighting Arrest In Court

By JOSH POLTILOVE and SAMARA SODOS

jpoltilove@tampatrib.com, slsodos@wfla.com

Batman has had a slew of enemies over the years – The Joker, The Riddler, Catwoman – but in Ybor City last year, he added a new nemesis: Tampa police.

Ybor City's version of the Caped Crusader –his real name is Walsh Ian Nichols – was sitting on a curb eating sushi on Oct. 21 when an officer arrested him for wearing a mask on a public street.

Nichols, 21, failed to use a batarang or fancy equipment to escape the officer. Now he is fighting back in court. His lawyer has filed a motion to dismiss, which will be heard next month.

"Law enforcement approached and detained Nichols who was sitting on the curb eating sushi and wearing traditional Batman apparel, complete with cape and partial mask," the motion to dismiss states. "It was a dark day for the Dark Knight, as he was subsequently placed under arrest for wearing a hood on a public street."

During an interview tonight, Nichols said a sergeant in Ybor City had an issue with his costume and caused him to land _ Pow! Zap! _ in the slammer. The sergeant, Nichols said, had previously advised him to unmask himself and told a fellow officer to arrest him.

"They actually didn't let me finish my sushi,'' Nichols said.

The legal argument outlined in the motion is that the law under which Nichols was arrested is aimed at combating hooded Ku Klux Klan members. The law was crafted to stop crime committers, not crime fighters, the motion states.

According to the motion to dismiss:

A Tampa police sergeant saw a Batman figure drive by on a motorcycle near East 7th Avenue and North 15th Street. The sergeant told Officer Lisa Cordero to track down Nichols, as the sergeant "had apparently advised Nichols to unmask himself three weeks earlier."

Nichols was stopped at East 9th Avenue and North 15th Street and arrested. In addition to the charge of illegally wearing a mask, he was charged with driving a motorcycle without a motorcycle license.

The anti-mask law was created in 1951:

"No person or persons over 16 years of age shall, while wearing any mask, hood, or device whereby any portion of the face is so hidden, concealed, or covered as to conceal the identity of the wearer, enter upon, or be or appear upon any lane, walk, alley, street, road, highway, or other public way in this state."

The law is part of a section of Florida Statutes relating to criminal anarchy, treason and other crimes against public order.

"The Defendant would note that the Batman character has always fought against such nefarious deeds," the motion states.

Nichols said if investigators search hard enough, they can determine just about anyone is breaking some law.

"There's a godawful lot of laws," he said.

He said he wishes he could go back to the good old days when he could walk around Ybor as the man in the suit.

"I can't go down there really anymore," he said. "Every time I go down there, me and my friends get dirty looks. My friends, meaning, my friend that dresses like Robin."

A Hot Summer Night, v.3

The summer -- endless summer -- is what I live for. The rich, blue hue of the Florida sky, swollen with white clouds, dense with sundrop moisture, the perfume of orange blossoms on the warm breeze -- that's the shimmering horizon in my mind's eye.

Ragtop Days, Cabernet Nights, my first blog, barely touched on the things I love. But it was a start. And then it accidentally imploded due to operator error (read that as: I really screwed things up with the settings and had to start over from scratch).

Once Upon a Hot Summer Night came next, and came close -- real close -- to capturing my interests and concerns; yet I always felt that half the posts were trivial, and even though they were things I liked, they weren't really about anything. Then, when they were about something, they caused trouble.

Hell, I'm no stranger to trouble. Some would say it's my middle name -- although really, my middle name is Franklin. Which, backwards, is Nilknarf.

I digress.

Cynic. Opinionated. Rebellious. Uncontrollable. Trouble. That's me, I guess. And with this, my third blog, I'll do the same things as I have done before, with one difference: I'll try to be less trivial. Sure, I'll still mix things up with the occasional cartoon or video, but I'll try to have something to say about it, too (even though, sometimes, I'll let the stories do the talking for me). I'll try to concentrate on the feelings and images that the titles of my previous blogs -- and this one -- meant to convey: the warm, free feeling of riding in a convertible to the beach; the lush taste of a fine Cabernet sipped in the moonlight; dreams we once wished upon a star; stories and imaginings, of this world and others, and of writing those tales straight on till morning; and the occasional essay, wherein this humble blogger will probably, in the terms of Oliver Stone, "Stir up a shitstorm." At least, I'll try.

So every now and then you'll get an essay of mine like "The Death of the Times-Dispatch;" and every now and then you'll get links to other pieces on the web, written by better writers and essayists than I; sometimes you'll get weird shit. But this time around, you won't get anything explicit or NSFW -- sorry, I'm trying to be at least a little responsible with this blog -- and eventually, even though you and I may never meet (assuming that anyone other than my tiny little circle of friends will read my incessant flow of b.s. -- well-informed b.s., but b.s. nevertheless), I hope you'll somehow get to know who I am, and if I can be trusted, or if I'm an idiot, or a left- or a right-wing megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur . . .

. . . or if I'm just trouble.

The better posts from Once Upon a Hot Summer Night have been imported here, so feel free to peruse the library. When you're finished, come back into the lounge. I'm on Facebook, if you want to make friends, and on Linked In. Say hi, tell me what you think, and let's go grab a brew or two. It's summer, eternal summer, here in Rusty's Tiki Bar -- and as long as the beer is cold and the night is hot, I'm there.