Roberts Confirmed
It’s a Nokia World
For the third year running tiny Finland stood atop the Global Competitiveness Ratings made by the World Economic Forum. On the decline, its former mentor Russia at an abysmal 75 and one-time go-getter Spain, now sinking below its neighbors. (Bring back Aznar!) Comer of the year – South Korea (no surprise there to anyone living in Los Angeles).
Global Warming! (LA Style)
DeLay DeLoused
House majority leader Tom DeLay has been indicted in a “conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme.” I have no idea whether he is guilty or not but I will say this… When I look at a list of today’s congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle – DeLay, Hastert, Pelosi, Reid, etc. – I want to stick a finger down my throat. Third party anyone? [No, no. Not Ross Perot. Stop him!-ed.]
What Should I Say? – A Pajamas Media Query
In the spirit of John Lennon’s “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans” and in part, I think, because this guy had a deadline on his book and couldn’t show, I have wound up being the keynote speaker at the conference on “Media, Communications & Technology in the Age of the Blogger” in New York on Oct. 26-27.
Now I would be disingenuous to say that I have never spoken in public. I have held forth at numerous writers conferences on such deep philosophical questions as “How do I get an agent?” and “Do you do an outline or do you just make it up as you go along?” But I have never spoken in front of such an august group on matters of such import. (Given the venue, I imagine I will have to wear a tie.) So, to be honest, I am getting a little nervous. I also realize this is an opportunity to organize my thoughts and speak on behalf of the Pajamas Media idea, even if our final name will still be embargoed (drama, drama) until our November 16 launch.
In the fledgling tradition of open media, what I would like to do is open a dialogue on here about what I should say. The comments section of this blog is almost always smarter than I am (okay, always) and I would be a fool not to listen to and/or plagiarize from brilliant people with anonymous names like flenser, chuck and Knucklehead. Or more real ones like Rick Ballard, Jamie Irons and David Thomson. (The list could go on with other superb commenters, but as with my speech there are time and space constraints and you get the idea.)
PJMedia began with the simultaneous goals of raising the profile and credibility of bloggers and providing them more remuneration for their efforts. We are working like beavers to accomplish this but we need your guidance. Perhaps we could start with the most difficult of all conundrums. How do we raise the blogosphere to the next level while maintaining the openness that is the hallmark of new media?
But don’t feel constrained by that. Feel free to pitch in with whatever other suggestions you might have. As I said, I could use the help.
“Intelligent Design” is a threat to our economy
Go ahead and believe the “intelligent design” theory if you want to – I think it’s claptrap and an insult to theists – but please keep it out of the science classroom. Our social studies and humanities classes are already polluted by enough asinine nonsense from the fuddy-duddy left. We don’t need to have science turned into Bible class (covert or otherwise) from the other side.
I don’t blame the biology teachers in Dover, PA for keeping this pseudo-science out of their classrooms. They’ve got plenty to do getting their high school students prepared for the serious (and worsening) competition of the global economy. (You can bet their peers in Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai aren’t wasting a helluva lot of time on “intelligent design.”)
To be clear. I have no objection to crèches at the mall, the Ten Commandments in court rooms, “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, etc., etc. Although I support separation of church and state, I’m happy to respect everyone’s beliefs and I’m not particularly scared of this country turning into a theocracy. But the science classroom is for science. Students in Dover, Pennsylvania and other rural areas are just as entitled to a real education as those in Los Angeles and New York. In fact the country needs them to have it, especially in science and math. And in the case of public education, it is not in our interest to waste precious taxpayer dollars teaching mythology in biology.
The Anne Volokh Conspiracy
The appearance of the profile of blogger… dare I call someone so serious a ‘celebrity’?… okay, ‘notable’… Eugene Volokh as our PJMedia profile today prompts me to tell a story. (Don’t go to sleep now!)
Considerably before I met Eugene Volokh , I met his mother Anne. In 1990, I found myself on a screenwriter’s tour of the Soviet Union arranged between our Writers Guild and their Cinematographers Union. Glasnost was already underway and the intention was the usual cultural exchange of that late Soviet period. Anne, a fairly recent immigrant from the USSR to Los Angeles, turned up on the tour to help translate.
One night in Tblisi, Georgia, we were all sitting around late in the hotel drinking the local schnapps. The subject of course – how could it be otherwise in Georgia for foreigners? – was the most famous or infamous of all Georgia’s sons – Joseph Stalin. Anne began to tell a story. A school girl, she was sitting in her class room in the Ukraine (I think it was the Ukraine) in 1953 when it was announced that Stalin had died. Every other young girl and boy in the room immediately broke into hysterics, sobbing uncontrollably for the passing of Papa Joe. Anne, as she told us, didn’t know what to do. She was terrified that she couldn’t cry. Unlike her classmates, Anne’s parents – Jews – had secretly told their daughter what a monster Stalin was, although it is hard to conceive that anyone at that time had any idea of the extent, that the man was responsible for tens of millions of deaths. I remember sitting there quietly in the Tblisi hotel, listening to Anne talk, thinking about Anne the teenage girl and feeling a lump grow in my throat. I was reminded of what privileged and fortunate lives we Americans have lived, at least those of us who did not have to flee from the likes of Stalin to get here.
Some time later I became friendly with Anne, attending parties at her house given by Movieline Magazine, which she published, and for Sister City events for St. Petersburg and Los Angeles (an amusing mating). I also heard about her son, the software prodigy. Several years after that I met that son, then the accomplished legal scholar at UCLA and blogosphere legend. We too became friends. I think I can speak for my co-founder Charles Johnson and our Supervising Exec Editor Glenn Reynolds to say we are proud to have him part of Pajamas Media, under its old or new name.
A New Fox at Fox
I have no idea if this is true (though I suspect it is), but according to MilitantIslamMonitor.org, Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal has bought a large share of Fox News. That’s the same Prince who hosts telethons for suicide bombers or – as Fox used to call them anyway – homicide bombers. The website continues:
The purchase of large share of what was considered a conservative station by a Saudi Prince known for his financial support for Islamist activities, shows that Militant Islam not only has come to America, it is taking over significant areas of American life.
Alwaleed bin Talal advocates business instead of boycotts, as the means to conquer America by influencing American public opinion, and the Fox aquisition is a continuation of his strategy.
The Chinese buying part of IBM was one thing, but this is downright creepy. [I thought they were suppposed to be "fair & balanced."-ed. And you said I was naive.]
You *know* the media made a hash of Katrina…
… when the LATimes says so.
Ameritocracy?
The American Thinker’s Ed Lasky considers the possibilities. One of several morals: when nepotism’s involved, watch your portfolio.
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