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March 30, 2006

Annals of Lousy Web Design

My Tivo eats the latest episode of The Amazing Race, so I go to Google Video to download it. I click to purchase, and discover paid downloads only work on Macs. So I switch to my PC, and when I click to purchase, up pops the CBS Amazing Race website - complete with a giant headline spoiling the results of the episode I was about to watch. D'oh!

Posted by tedf at 01:06 AM | Comments (0)

March 29, 2006

TPM on How Print Journalists Rip Off Bloggers

This is a fascinating rant from the normally diplomatic Joshua Micah Marshall, author of Talking Points Memo and editor/publisher of TPM Muckraker and TPM Cafe. It's on how print reporters routinely rip off stories first reported by bloggers and publish them without credit, as if they were original reporting.

I know many professional journalists are made defensive by the world of amateur/self-employed bloggers. But that's no excuse for intellectual dishonesty.

Posted by tedf at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)

March 28, 2006

The Future of RSS

Thanks to the great Feedburner service, I've now incorporated my Flickr RSS feed into the Tedlog feed. That means that those of you who read this blog in an RSS aggregator will now get all the new Flickr photos as they're posted, as well. My hope is that this creates an RSS analogue to the design of the website, which runs a selection of photos along the right-hand column.

RSS is a tricky medium - full of promise, but also full of new design challenges. The concept of news aggregation is really smart and forward-thinking. It replaces the paradigm of the static bookmark with the paradigm of the continuously updated feed.

I think Apple's Safari 2.0 does the best job of turning RSS feeds into useful information. A bookmark menu runs along the top, just below the toolbar. After each menu item is a number in parentheses. That's how many new blog entries have been posted since the last time the feed was opened. So, at a glance, you can see which of your top blogs have new content, and which don't. You eliminate the annoyance of visiting a favorite site only to discover that nothing new has been posted since the last time you checked. And you can do it all from right inside your web browser, without having to run a separate program.

But I still have problems with how RSS is visually implemented. In Safari, if I decide I want to read a specific blog entry, I usually click straight through from the page that displays the RSS feed, to the website itself.

The problem is that in any RSS reader, the original visual context of a blog entry is effaced, replaced by the formatting options of a range of different aggregators. The challenge is to find ways to exploit the developing Atom feed language (Atom is the HTML of RSS, more or less) to put design back into blogs. This Feedburner service combining blog feeds with Flickr feeds is a great example of how to answer this challenge by leveraging the power of RSS technology. A web page is one single, indivisible thing. But an RSS feed is a collection of many discrete items. So they can be juggled and recombined in an array of ways.

If RSS is really going to reach its potential, it can't just be about content, but also form. There has to be room for bloggers to shape the visual style of their self-representations. The web isn't just about words. After all, it was Mosaic, the first graphical browser, which finally turned the internet into a mass medium. RSS is still waiting for its Mosaic.

Posted by tedf at 07:03 PM | Comments (0)

My Friend Flickr

I've now scoured my iPhoto library and uploaded all of my faves to Flickr. They'll all randomly rotate in and out of the group of photos in the "Photocast" section of Tedlog, which is in the right-hand column under "About Ted." You can click on any one of the photos to go to a full-size version on the Flickr site. You can also browse through all the photos here, and watch them as a slideshow here.

Posted by tedf at 03:37 PM | Comments (0)

March 27, 2006

New Poll: GA Republicans May Be Vulnerable

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, new polls suggest that W's low approval ratings and Ralph Reed's links to the Abramoff scandal (Reed is the former Christian Coalition head running to be the Republican candidate for Lietenant Governor) are dragging down Governor Sonny Perdue's numbers. The question for Democratic primary voters is, who's the better option: Lietenant Governor Mark Taylor or Secretary of State Cathy Cox?

Taylor likes to pose as an economic populist. Every year he discovers a new threat to the popular HOPE scholarship program, practically daring the Republicans to take him on and look anti-education. But HOPE is easy to demagogue on - it's a benefit that, overall, transfers money from largely poor instant-lottery players to largely middle-class parents of college students. That doesn't mean it's not a valuable program - it's almost always a good thing for a state to invest more in education, however it can find the money. Better for the state to capture its own gamblers' money, rather than letting that spending go to convenience stores set up just past the Tennessee or Alabama borders, or now, I'm sure, online, where no state gets a cut at all.

But the point is, HOPE hype alone does not a true economic populist make. Will Taylor actually have the guts to try to raise any taxes in the teeth of a legislature that's likely to stay Republican for the rest of the decade, thanks to gerrymandering? More to the point, can he rally public support in such a way that makes it possible for him to propose raising some taxes, and succeed? God, I hope so, although it seems like a long shot.

The second top contender, Cox, has a rep for competence with the Georgia lawyers I know. Lawyers, after all, are the ones who deal with the Secretary of State's office every day. But in her most high-profile decision in her job, she blew it: she pushed for those scandalous Diebold electronic voting machines which are not adequately protected from hacks and which leave no paper trail for a recount. Her office also bungled the 2004 elections, as understaffed polling stations in poor, nonwhite districts had lines stretching for hours, shamefully suppressing the vote by discouraging some from voting at all. I don't know what share of the blame she deserves for that, but it's certainly not evidence that her next stop should be the governor's mansion.

I do like the idea of more Democratic women running for office in the South. In terms of the battle for swing voters, I think the political calculus makes sense: stop coddling angry white men, and instead focus on winning over soccer moms. After all, there's no reason white Southern women need buy into the Fox News conservatism of so many white Southern men. It's not like patriarchy is working so well for them - especially if they've been divorced. The Bible Belt has the highest divorce rates in the country, and women almost always end up in worse economic shape after divorce than men.

But I'm not sure if any progressive can really trust or support Cox, given her spotty record on electoral issues. That means Georgia progressives might as well get behind Taylor, I guess, and do our best to pressure him from the left.

Unless, that is, I'm missing a big side of the story from only getting my GA political news from the AJC - a likely prospect, come to think of it . . .

Posted by tedf at 03:44 PM | Comments (0)

How The American Media Ignored Sandra Day O'Connor's Warning That The US Is In Danger of Sliding Into Dictatorship

O'Connor's speech is the judicial equivalent of Eisenhower's farewell warning about the "military-industrial complex." Coming from one of the Republican justices who handed the White House to Bush in 2000, it's very, very big news. But beyond Nina Totenberg, the US media ignored the story for over a week.

When the traditional gatekeepers drop the ball, it's up to the blogosphere to call them on it. It did, and the outrage started to build. Finally, two weeks after the speech, this story is beginning to get the kind of attention it deserves.

Check out Jonathan Raban's article in Seattle's The Stranger for all the details.

Posted by tedf at 01:46 PM | Comments (0)

March 26, 2006

The Lessons of the Bush Era

Following up on the debate over whether Reagan was a better president than Bush, reader M.M. makes these astute points on Matthew Yglesias's TPM Cafe blog:

First, the difference between Bush and Reagan in domestic policy is not that Reagan was nicer, more optimistic, or more moderate. It is that in the 1980s the Democratic majority in the House curbed Reagan. Reagan was prevented from doing much of what he wanted to do, even from raising his battier ideas, by the fact of divided government and checks and balances. Republicans, on the other hand, have controlled both houses of Congress for Bush's entire term. To ignore this distinction and to credit Reagan personally for avoiding Bush's excesses is not only to overlook the excesses that did occur under Reagan; it also is to value the personal over the institutional.

Second, the difference between Bush and Reagan in foreign policy is not that Reagan's foreign policy really was not that bad, that it was not reckless and it did not aspire - with the important exception of Central America - to subvert and invade countries (check out Reagan's views on Vietnam in the '60s). The difference is that the fact of Soviet power and the structure of the Cold War exerted an inhibiting effect on Reagan's foreign policy. The Bush administration faces fewer impediments to its ambitions, allowing it to pursue projects that were inconceivable for Reagan (such as the destabilization of the Mid-East). In ignoring the constraints Reagan inherited, your critics again are privileging the personal, this time at the expense of the structural. The difference between Reagan and Bush is not Reagan's sunny disposition: it is the change in the international context.

Finally, it is silly and counter- productive of your critics to attack Bush in 2006 for personal shortcomings (incompetence, stupidity, fanaticism). Bush is all of these things, but Bush will not run for the presidency again. But Reaganism is running already. To attack Bush by letting Reaganism off the hook is not only wrong in its understanding of the 1980s versus the 2000s. It also is counterproductiv e politically. In attributing the damage Bush is causing to Bush personally, liberals not only are personalizing and trivializing the threat of the right; they also are endorsing the fundamental premises of contemporary conservatism - that Reaganism reigns supreme and, by inference, that Bush is failing because he strayed from it. The right, once again, is thinking about politics, while liberals are thinking about the personal.

I'm always a sucker for the argument that the American cult of the individual depoliticizes our discussion of politics. We blame Bush himself, instead of understanding the much more powerful institutional structures and ideological assumptions which brought him to power and will be around long after 2008.

On the flip side, I wonder if in some ways a culture can really only make sense of institutions and ideology via the language of myth - of heroes and villains.

Certainly, we can't let the right get away with turning Bush into a scapegoat, an outlier rather than the ultimate embodiment of Reaganism. That's the revisionist spadework that conservatives like Bruce Bartlett are already getting started on.

But at the same time, I think it's only natural, and perfectly justified, to also bash Bush qua Bush. That's because we want to counter the myth of Reaganism - that hodgepodge of cultural backlash, voodoo economics, and military belligerence which has sold so well in this country ever since the 1980 election - with a new, much more honest story about what conservative policies do to a country. We can call it "The Lessons of the Bush Era."

We want Bush to be for the Left today what Jimmy Carter was for the Right in the 1980s: the discrediting example of what happens when your opponent's policies are pursued.

This wasn't fair to Carter, but it was very effective politics at the time. We remember Carter more fondly today, thanks largely to his laudable post-presidential career working for the poor, for peace, and for international democracy. But through much of the '80s, his name was political poison. He was the guy who discredited the term "liberal" - even though he was far enough to the right within the party that Ted Kennedy actually challenged him from the left in the 1980 primaries.

"The Lessons of the Carter Era" with which those Reagan Republicans made so much hay in the 1980s were supposed to be that the Democrats just want to "tax and spend," and that you can never let the terrorists push you around.

Of course, Reagan ended up running the country into a deep recession which, combined with cruel cuts in social services, inflicted far more pain than the so-called "stagflation"of the Carter years. Meanwhile, he made deals under the table for hostages with Iranian terrorists, while breaking the law to secretly fund anti-Communist paramilitary terror squads in Central America.

"The Lessons of the Bush Era" will be much closer to the truth than the bogus "Lessons of the Carter Era." They should discredit the term "conservative" much the way Carter, fairly or not, discredited "liberal." They should make coming from the party of Bush strike one against every Republican politician running in every election at every level of government for the next decade.

The Republicans were handed the keys to the country by the Supreme Court in 2000. Here are the consequences of a half a decade of conservative rule:

- Our soil is attacked for the first time since 1941. Thousands of civilians are murdered after critical intelligence information warning of the attack is ignored.

- Billions and billions of dollars are transferred, through tax cuts, from the middle-class and working-class recipients of government funds and services to a small number of megamillionaires and billionaires. The resulting debt is financed by international investors who hold increasing influence over the national economy.

- Our country spreads false propaganda through all channels of American journalism and international dipolmacy in order to drum up support for an unnecessary, unwinnable war which kills thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraquis. That war is conducted in open violation of the Geneva Convention, producing anger against our country among not only Arabs throughout the Middle East, but the citizens of almost every other country on the globe.

- Our country abandons the international struggle to prevent climate change which could threaten the lives and homes of large portions of the globe's population, and which already may be responsible for a sharp upsurge in the numbers and severity of natural disasters.

- The executive branch's criminally negligent mishandling of one natural disaster results in the loss of at least 1300 lives (and perhaps many more), the creation of hundreds of thousands of refugees, and the near-destruction of one of the world's cultural treasures, the city of New Orleans.

Now, it's time to talk about "The Lessons of the Bush Era." Here's where the Left needs to figure out how to properly frame the Bush disaster, so that it ends up being not just about one man, but about everything he stands for.

Hereare some proposed "Lessons of the Bush Era." Feel free to add your own.

- Progressive taxation is the cornerstone of economic fairness.

- All Americans have a right to health care and retirement security.

- International diplomacy must always be the preferred arena for global conflict resolution.

- The government must always choose openness over secrecy.

- Public financing of campaigns is the only way to avoid the corruption of the democratic system by the wealthy.

- The president is not above the law.

Posted by tedf at 05:37 PM | Comments (0)

March 24, 2006

"Snakes on a Plane" Trailer

Get your copy of the player here

Here's a great article in the Hollywood Reporter on the accidental viral marketing campaign for SoaP.

Posted by tedf at 10:57 PM | Comments (0)

Way Cool Death Star Home Theater

Click here for more. (via Digg.)

Posted by tedf at 07:09 PM | Comments (0)

Moby In Real Life Vs. Moby As She Sees Herself

(Thanks to KT for the idea and the leopard photo.)

Posted by tedf at 05:30 PM | Comments (0)

Moby, Up Close And Personal

Posted by tedf at 01:38 PM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2006

Letterman's "Top Ten Reasons Dick Cheney Won't Resign"

10. Trying to fix up Condi Rice with his daughter

9. Turns out when you shoot somebody, if you're not vice president, you gotta do time

8. Bush leaves at two every day and then it's margaritas and Fritos

7. Set the solitare high score on his office computer

6. Wants to see if he can help Bush get his approval rating under ten

5. Too hard to give up Vice Presidential Discount at D.C. area Sam Goody stores

4. Wants to stay on the job until every country in the world hates us

3. Extra-zappy White House defibrillators

2. Undisclosed location has foosball and whores

1. Why quit when things are going so well?

Late Show with David Letterman : Top Ten (via Salon War Room)

Posted by tedf at 03:03 AM | Comments (0)

March 22, 2006

"The Eternal Sunshine of David Brooks's Mind"

Awesome piece by Daniel Radosh deconstructing the selective memory of conservative pundit David Brooks - the guy on PBS and the New York Times Op-Ed page who's supposed to be the "thinking person's conservative." Brooks wrote a piece praising the conservative punditocracy for its supposedly sober, prescient response to the end of the conventional portion of the Iraq war. But thanks to the miracle of the Lexis/Nexis database, Radosh is able to go back and track down multiple examples of Brooks himself leading the cheering section back in 2003. "Let the over-exhuberance recommence!" he wrote after the taking of Baghdad, in a piece which goes on to scold all the doubters and naysayers.

You could get away with this in the days of Pravda, where they'd airbrush old photos of gatherings of Soviet leaders to hide the faces of those who'd been purged. It's a lot harder to rewrite history in the internet age. But people still try - just the other day, Bush claimed in his press conference that we only went to war after Saddam "kicked out the inspectors" - a patent falsehood obvious to anybody who was awake just three years ago. Thankfully, the American people don't appear to be buying it - hence, the bogglingly low approval ratings - 33% in a recent Pew poll.

Posted by tedf at 10:19 PM | Comments (0)

The Horror, The Horror . . .

Cat Training, House Training

Posted by tedf at 09:51 PM | Comments (1)

"The Ten Most Accurately Rated Bands of All Time"

I just discovered this great piece from Spin (which happens to be the first magazine I ever got paid to write for) on those rare bands who end up neither overrated nor underrated, but just right. I don't agree with all the author's judgements (I think Tone-Loc and Young-MC are both seriously underrated - they, like Hanson, made better music with the Dust Brothers than Beck ever has), but the concept is great.

On the related subject of famousness, see the always dead-on Fametracker, which accurately dubs itself "The Famer's Almanac of Celebrity Worth."

And for the origins of this whole thread, check out this piece of basketblogging by moonlighting TPM Cafe and Tapped contributor Matthew Yglesias, along with the wide-ranging discussion it engenders, wherein I end up defending the Fantasic Four movie for its comic-booky charms. (I hated Batman Begins because it went exactly the opposite way - it seemed desperately apologetic about being a movie based on a comic book. But that's a subject for another post . . .)

Posted by tedf at 07:23 PM | Comments (3)

March 21, 2006

W: Worst President Ever?

I'm not enough of a historian to attempt to weigh GWB against Grant or Buchanan. And obviously, a lot depends on how Bush handles the next three years - while Iraq has been a catastrophe, the spillover hasn't yet threatened American global hegemony. That may start to happen in the next few years, as our military remains spread too thin, other countries pull farther away from alliances with our rogue state, and international investors begin switching their holdings from dollars to euros (something Dubai has already threatened to do in the aftermath of the whole port sale drama).

Actually, that in itself wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. America's days as the world's only superpower are probably numbered, no matter what any president does. We're clearly moving into the decline phase of the cycle outlined by Paul Kennedy in The Rise and Fall of Great Powers. The real scary question will be how W handles the inevitable weakening of US preeminence. Let's just hope the really challenging stuff - say, a faceoff with a country with nukes - doesn't come down until after 2008. Here's another case where even McCain or Hegel (though probably not Frist) would be a huge improvement over Bush - while a "moderate" Dem like Hilary could find herself in a huge bind trying to do the smart thing while still looking "tough."

Sticking to modern presidents, Joshua Michah Marshall makes a strong case here that W is a lot worse than Ronald Reagan was. As a child of the '80s, that's pretty hard for me to hear. But Reagan was willing to rethink his assumptions and raise taxes when necessary, limit his invasions to countries the US could safely bully (or run away from, as in Lebanon), and work with Gorbachev as the Soviet Union collapsed. Could you imagine W having the intelligence, flexibility, and vision to do any of those things?

Posted by tedf at 01:32 PM | Comments (0)

March 20, 2006

Photocast

I've added a new feature to Tedlog: a "photocast" along the right-hand column, right below the section on Electric Dreams. It displays thumbnails of ten randomly selected photos from my Flickr account. Right now it's all shots from recent travels in Georgia. I'll be going through my whole iPhoto library over the next few days to post all my faves, then I'll start taking new photos with the photocast in mind.

If you click on any tumbnail in the Flickr "badge" in that right-hand column, you'll be taken to the full image in Flickr. From there, you can browse the rest of my images, view them in a slideshow, and even subscribe to an RSS feed of every photo I post. You can also go directly to my Flickr homepage by visiting http://www.flickr.com/photos/tedfriedman.

Posted by tedf at 01:14 PM | Comments (0)

March 18, 2006

Product Placement Databases

Brand Hype is a valuable new resource for connoisseurs of corporate backscratching like myself: a database of product placement in movies. Did you know that Orville Redenbacher's Popcorn makes a cameo in Crash?

See also Agenda Inc.'s American Brandstand, which charts the mentions of brands in pop songs. The top musical brand of 2005? Mercedes Benz, mentioned in hit songs by Kanye West, The Game, and Ciara.

For my own takes on product placement and commodity culture, check out this piece on Cast Away and this one on The World of Coca-Cola.

Posted by tedf at 02:28 AM | Comments (0)

March 17, 2006

Special Friday Night Dogblogging

Bettie's Snow Day - Google Video

Posted by tedf at 07:18 PM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2006

Jessica Simpson Outclasses Bush

From Reuters (via TPM):

Concerned about politicizing her favorite charity, singer-actress Jessica Simpson on Wednesday turned down a invitation to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush, a snub that left Republicans dismayed. . . .

The blond star of the film "The Dukes of Hazzard" still plans to visit Washington on Thursday to lobby members of Congress on behalf of Operation Smile, a non-profit venture offering free plastic surgery for disadvantaged children overseas with facial deformities.

People close to Simpson said she declined a request to appear that same evening at the gala fund-raiser of the National Republican Congressional Committee -- even after she was offered some private face time with Bush -- because Operation Smile is a non-partisan group.

"It just feels wrong," one Simpson insider told Reuters on Wednesday, adding that the actress keeps her political views private. "She would love to meet the president and talk about Operation Smile ... but she can't do it at a fund-raiser for the Republican Party."

Jess knows a sinking ship when she sees one.

Posted by tedf at 01:37 PM | Comments (0)

March 15, 2006

Russ Feingold: The Only Dem Senator With Any Guts?

Believe it or not, right now Russ Feingold can't get a single other senator to sign on to his push to censure Bush over illegal wiretapping and lying about Iraq.

The other Democratic senators counter that before voting for censure, they should push for investigations. That would be nice, but the Republicans have blocked every attempt to investigate. Not that investigations are even needed to unearth what the Bush administration will happily tell you to your face: that they believe the president is above the law. Forget about the wiretaps and war lies - what about these "signing statements" where the president now claims to have ultimate authority to determine the meaning of legislation? McCain pushed through his anti-torture bill, Bush signed it, but then added a "signing statement" that boils down to "this law doesn't really apply to me." And McCain, sadly choosing electability over integrity, let him get away with it.

This isn't a partisan issue, however it may be framed by the media. Any senator, Democratic or Republican, who doesn't work to check this executive's frightening, unconstitutional usurpation of power is doing a grave disservice to the future of American democracy.

During Watergate, at some point Republicans with integrity broke with Nixon. What the Bush administration already admits to doing is far worse than Watergate. When will any politician other than Feingold - Democrat or Republican - show some spine?

UPDATE: Tom Harkin has now signed on as the bill's first co-sponsor.

UPDATED UPDATE: Here's a story from Dana Milbank in the Washington Post that would be hilarious if it wasn't so depressing: Dem senators stumpling over each other to avoid answering reporters' questions about the Feingold resolution.

"I really can't right now," John Kerry (Mass.) said as he hurried past a knot of reporters -- an excuse that fell apart when Kerry was forced into an awkward wait as Capitol Police stopped an aide at the magnetometer.

Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) brushed past the press pack, shaking her head and waving her hand over her shoulder. When an errant food cart blocked her entrance to the meeting room, she tried to hide from reporters behind the 4-foot-11 Barbara Mikulski (Md.).

"Ask her after lunch," offered Clinton's spokesman, Philippe Reines. But Clinton, with most of her colleagues, fled the lunch out a back door as if escaping a fire.

See also this great piece from Anonymous Liberal.

Posted by tedf at 08:07 PM | Comments (0)

Great Molly Ivins Column

Enough of the D.C. Dems | The Progressive (via Blog for Democracy)

Posted by tedf at 12:36 AM | Comments (0)

March 10, 2006

The State of American Journalism

Joshua Micah Marshall discovered (via a reader tip) this inflammatory, inaccurate headline on the CNN website:

As Marshall explains,

Needless to say, no Democrats have been indicted. The headline is for an AP story in which RNC honcho Ken Mehlman 'indicts' the Democrats for having no message.

Who's the headline writer? Yet more of the long steady decline of CNN.

CNN is still a great global newsgathering organization. Many of my international graduate students come to Atlanta because of the stature CNN International has all over the world.

But here in the US, we get an often-inferior product, packaged to appeal to an audience assumed to be made up exclusively of white professionals and soccer moms. It presents many more conservatives then progressives, and passes along the Bush administration's baldfaced lies with neither healthy skepticism nor necessary contextualization.

This specific headline gaffe in itself is more likely a result of one incompetent, unprofessional editor, rather than evidence of an institution-wide rightward slant. But the fact that the headline could make it online shows that quality control at CNN is not what it should be.

Company-wide, CNN right now should be searching its soul to ask how it could have allowed itself to be duped by the Bush administration into repeating so many of its lies on the way to war in Iraq. Bush used CNN, along with the rest of the American journalistic establishment, to sell his illegal war. They let him get away with it, just as they're letting him get away with impeachable offenses such as knowingly breaking the FISA law with warrarntless wiretaps. Oh, they're "reporting" on the story. But they're framing the issue as "is or isn't the administration breaking the law?" when the illegality of the wiretaps isn't really in any doubt. It's what Marshall calls "up-is-down-ism" - Republican spinners can present demonstrably untrue statements, and so-called journalists will simply report them as if they're one credible point of view. Another way to put it would be "2+2=5-ism." That's the logical impossibility the prisoners in Orwell's 1984 were forced by the government to agree was true.

But restoring journalistic integrity - to say nothing of the future of democracy - doesn't appear to be very high on the list of CNN priorities. CNN's owner, Time Warner, is currently making a major push to please the Republican Party, hiring a Tom DeLay protege as its chief DC lobbyist. That's because CEO Richard Parsons only narrowly survived a recent takeover bid by corporate raider Carl Icahn, who'd like to buy Time Warner, then sell it off in pieces.

One of the criticisms that has weakened the Parsons regime is that Time Warner hasn't been doing enough to shed a "liberal" image. (See, for example, this dustup last August, which presumably led to Time Warner's capitulation in hiring the DeLay crony.) That liberal image, it's presumed by stock analysts, is hurting its profits (since it has insufficient leverage with Republican regulators) and share price (since it's displeasing the conservative investor class). Parson's being one of the country's most powerful African-Americans is probably already a strike against Time Warner in some racist boardrooms. Not that I have a ton of sympathy for Parsons, who seems eager enough to sign away his organization's integrity to make good with the Republicans.

So there may well be corporate pressure at CNN to become something like Fox-lite. This may explain why they've so comfortably swallowed the conventional opinion that there's no money to be made in programming for the left. Evidence, however, has shown this to be a myth. One of the very few avowedly liberal tak shows ever allowed on cable, Phil Donahue's show for MSNBC, was cancelled even though its ratings were higher than those of many of its peers. Donahue later described how the network put ongoing pressure on the show to avoid booking too many liberals.

I'm sure it helps GE with the Bush administration to keep MSNBC to the right of center. GE, after all, is a global conglomerate with many regulatory interests at stake. It's also run by a bunch of very rich men who've saved many millions in taxes under the Bush administration, and look to clean up even after death if the estate tax is repealed.

It's not just GE and CNN, though. Research by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has repeatedly found that all the TV networks favor Republicans over Democrats, and moderate Democrats over progressives, in their choices for hosts and guests. Think of how relentlessly CBS, like Time Warner a cosmopolitan organization based in "liberal" New York City, has been hammered by the right for attempting investigative reporting of the Bush administration. With the ascension of Bob Shiffer, it looks like CBS is giving in, for now at least.

Bush has often said that he greatly admires Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy. Italian media resembles Pravda more than it does the public sphere of a vibrant democracy. Berlusconi owns the major Italian television networks, and controls the public broadcast system as Prime Minister. No wonder he's been able to survive numerous corruption trials, as he owns the major sources of public information for voters. I'm convinced the Republican Party looks to Italy as a role model. (Check out this site, for more on Berlusconi. It's the homepage for an excellent PBS documentary on Italian media and democracy, "The Prime Minister and the Press." See also this book from Verso.) Then there's Bush's admiration for Putin . . .

One huge irony, as the great documentary Control Room shows, is that while the US has been lecturing the Arab world on democracy, Al Jazeera is actually a much more professional, credible, and accurate international news organization than, say, The New York Times, which still hasn't come close to acknowledging the harm the Judith Miller saga did to this country. Without those bogus stories about Iraqui nuclear and chemical weapons - fabrications fed to Judy by Scooter Libby as part of a concerted propaganda strategy - American opinion, especially among the elites who read the Times, would have been far more skeptical about going to war. The Times really does have blood on its hands.

Just to put this in the context of the hallowed history of the "old grey lady," imagine what the consequences might have been for the country if the Times had quashed the Pentagon Papers and published only Nixon administration lies instead. The antiwar movement would have never reached the level of credibility needed to turn the majority of Americans' minds against the war. Without pressure to end the war, Nixon might very well have expanded it further. And the quagmire would have been even more difficult to extract outselves from.

Think also about the courage it took for Walter Cronkite to come out against the war, and the impact it must have had. Does any newsanchor today have that kind of courage? Why are comedians (Jon Stewart, Steven Colbert, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Bill Maher) the only ones on TV today allowed to tell the truth? And, more to the point, what can be done to change this sorry state of affairs?

CNN could try to offer a real alternative to Fox: fair, rigorous reporting, along with smart, thoughtful opinion from all sides of political issues. That doesn't have to be PBS-level dull, or dumbed-down. It can just be smart, engaging, and open, like The Daily Show or Sportscenter, except with real news.

This may be what Anderson Cooper thinks he's trying to do, but from what I've seen, other than those telegenic tears in New Orleans, he hasn't really followed through. And that Wolf Blitzer show with all the video screens just gives me a headache. Both of these shows seem to want to be hip and edgy without actually having to speak the truth to power. But that's not good journalism, or even compelling TV. It's just depressing.

So far, the most intriguing attempt to try a "Daily Show with real news" is Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. With Dan Patrick, Olbermann invented the Sportscenter sensibility at ESPN, and it turns out to be a solid fit for other forms of news, as well. Countdown appears to be both getting better and building an audience, which is encouraging. I'll be very curious to see how this develops - and whether Olbermann, a prickly guy with real integrity who left previous jobs at ESPN and Fox over conflicts with higher-ups, will start running into pressure from the bosses at GE to tone it down.

I'm actually not too depressed about the state of TV news right now, overall. With The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, there's more progressive satire on television than at any previous point in American history. If progressives can get the congressional tide to turn in '06, many media corporations will be relieved to back off of their marriage-at-gunpoint to the Republican party. And new experiments in democratic video production like Al Gore's Current TV, while not quite yet ready for prime time, are pretty exciting. I could imagine a service that combines Google Video and Google News to present a personalized, algorithm-generated daily newscast composed entirely of clips sent in from users around the world. (Now that I think of it, I wonder how hard it would be to create that myself via the Google API. Any thoughts?)

One way or another, that's the next step: for videoblogging to challenge TV journalism just as text blogging is challenging newspapers, and podcasting is challenging radio. It's going to be a bigger challenge, since viewers expect certain levels of production standards, and video production takes a lot more time and money than just writing words or talking into a microphone. And journalism often demands resources and training that amateurs are unlikely to have. But there are already some interesting projects that leverage the power of the web to make ambitious work widely available at little cost. For example, the progressive/radical nightly news show Democracy Now! is now available as a free video podcast through iTunes. There's also a great podcast, War News Radio, that's produced by a bunch of Swarthmore undergraduates largely by interviewing Iraqi citizens via Skype, the free international internet phone service. These students leverage new technologies to allow amateurs to share with a global audience the kind of information that even reporters on the scene aren't privvy to.

Those interchangeable bloviators on the TV talk shows are the dying gasps of a corrupt, bloated system. The web is the future of journalism.

In the meantime, I'm sure all of these news organizations are filled with smart, talented, and creative reporters, editors, producers and technicians chafing against these diktats from on high. As viewers and bloggers, let's do everything we can to encourage and support courageous journalists in the Eward R. Murrow tradition like Keith Olbermann.

At the same time, let's also not think we can ever trust the global media oligopoly to give us the information we need about our world. Let a million videopodnewscasts bloom!

Posted by tedf at 07:11 PM | Comments (0)

March 09, 2006

The Depressing Saga Of Andrew Young

Andrew Young began his career began as part of MLK's inner circle. He was Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the UN, then mayor of Atlanta in the 1980s.

Now, he lends his credibility to fake grass-roots "astroturf" PR organizations such as something called "Working Families for Wal-Mart."

Unfortunately, this piece eviscerating Young quotes a major chunk of a 1997 New Republic article that happened to be written by Steven Glass, the guy who got busted for fabricating stories. I don't know if anything from that part was made up. But the rest of the piece is completely credible, and very disappointing.

I guess Young has to make a living, just like everybody else. He also has foundations and other philanthropic organizations to keep bankrolled. But it's possible to be a political mover and shaker without selling out your civil rights legacy to become a corporate shill. Just look at John Lewis, the great Georgia congressman.

Posted by tedf at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)

March 08, 2006

What Should Be In A Progressive "Contract for America"?

Should congressional Democrats run on a progressive Contract for America in 2006? Yes! Yes they should! They need to nationalize the 2006 elections, and not let each congressional Republican slink away from those low Bush numbers! They need to think about their party, and not just about their own political fortunes.

They even need to risk strategies that threaten all incumbents by supporting redistricting plans that make more districts truly competitive among the parties. There should be no such thing as a "safe seat," Republican or Democratic. That's not how democracy was designed to work.

But Salon's War Room reports that many cowardly Democratic leaders, including Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, are pushing a decentralized, nonideological campaign approach. Because that's worked so well in congressional elections for Democrats since 1994!

What the Dems need right now, I'm afraid to say, is a progressive Newt Gingrich. Rahm Emmanuel, this is your moment to shine!

To help him out a little, let's start a conversation right here. What should be in a truly progressive, truly effective Democratic Contract for America? What should it be called? How should it be promoted? And how can the blogosphere make this happen in the face of the indifference of the Democratic establishment?

Here's what I'd start with: The Five Promises

- We promise to get the US out of Iraq via the Murtha plan
- We promise to create a system of universal health care
- We promise to raise the minimum wage
- We promise to reform the political system
- We promise to establish American energy independence through a "Manhattan Project" for renewable fuels

Promote the hell out of it - brand it, like any new product. Sell the Democratic party to the American people. They're looking to buy.

Posted by tedf at 02:54 AM | Comments (3)

March 07, 2006

GA Loses NASCAR Museum to Charlotte - Hooray!

Hey, Georgians, let's take a moment to celebrate a progressive victory by default: losing the race for a NASCAR musem to Charlotte.

It looked like the legislature was ready and willing to fork over $102 million in bribe money to the already preposterously wealthy France family to get them abandoning North Carolina, the home of NASCAR. That's the opposite of the model the city used to build the Aquarium, where the rich guy, Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus, gave the city money, rather than taking it.

Nothing against NASCAR, by the way - they just don't need state money to build a self-promotional museum.

The NASCAR bid was relentlessly hyped in the business pages and often the front page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I was disappointed by the slant of most of these stories, which seemed to presume a consensus that throwing taxpayer money at rich people is a good thing. When Atlanta city offials objected to the legislature attempting to grab a pot of $20 million already earmarked to efforts for the Atlanta homeless, they were protrayed as spoilsports.

The AJC editorial page, however, run by the formidable Cynthia Tucker, demurred from what appears to be Atlanta elite opinion with a much smarter critique of a rigged game where corporations play one state off against another in a race to the bottom. I saw the other side of that first-hand when I lived in New Haven, CT - all the good jobs had migrated South, where the states are always ready to help companies break unions and pay less taxes. New Haven's primary strategy in response was to throw taxpayers' money at anybody who might be willing to do business in the city, in scenarios straight out of Roger & Me. We usually only see this game when the business is entertainment, like baseball teams and NASCAR museums. But that's just the ugly tip of a skanky, skanky iceberg.

Apparently the Supreme Court will be ruling on whether this whole system of having states compete against each other with tax "incentives" is unconstitutional. I can't imagiine the Roberts court shutting it down, but man, would that be a boon to the American taxpayer and the American worker.

Anyway, with the NASCAR romance off, maybe the legislature can get behind something less mercenary and more valuable as an investment of the state's resources. There's an interesting discussion going on about this issue at the Blog for Democracy, a great group blog for Georgia progressives. If GA progressives start talking now, maybe we can influence the next plan, from the bottom up. At the very least, this is an interesting thought experiment: what would a smart, progressive government do with a big exhibition space in the heart of a revitalizing downtown?

Here's what I propose: How about another world-class educational attraction to complement the Aquarium? Not another corporate shrine, like The World of Coca-Cola. (For more on the World of Coke, check out this piece I published in Communication Research. It was actually my first journal article, and it started out as my undergraduate senior thesis. The World of Coke and I go way back.)

In any case, the point is to build not another World of Coke or World of NASCAR, but something of real civic value, along the lines of the High Museum of Art for another discipline.

When I lived in North Carolina in the 1990s, Raleigh went on a museum-building tear: a new Natural History museum, expansion of the North Carolina Museum of Art, and a goofy but intriguing "interactive museum about the world" called Exploris. North Carolina (their own NASCAR museum bid aside) is a state that really knows how to invest in education. The result is the economic successes of the Research Triangle. That should be the model for Georgia - and all states - to follow - to invest in growing the city's "creative class," rather than throwing money at carpetbaggers.

I can think of a few possible museums:

- A museum of journalism, to complement the CNN Center. The challenge here would be to do something smarter (and less US-centric) than The Newseum, an underwhelming "musem of news" run in Virginia by the Freedom Forum, a nonprofit put together by the founder of USA Today. For more on the Newseum, check out this essay I wrote for Critical Studies in Media Communication.

- A museum of civil rights. This is a no-brainer for Atlanta, althought the best location might be as part of a renovated MLK Historic Site. The lack of investment in the MLK site has been scandalous. How can the legislature get away with throwing around money for racecar museums, but not for honoring (and economically exploiting) its state's greatest citizen?

- A interactive science museum. Most cities of Atlanta's size have one. We did, an underfunded place called Sci-Tech that finally closed. This time, we should do it right, with a focus on cutting-edge technologies.

Have other ideas? Please join the Comments below - I really think if we get people talking, maybe we can influence what comes next to downtown.

UPDATE: After the winning bid was announced, a NASCAR team owner was quoted as saying the fear of crime in downtown Atlanta was a major strike against the city. This appeared to be not only dumb (downtown Atlanta's no scarier than any other city downtown at night - I'd be more spooked walking around in the emptiness of downtown Charlotte than the bustle of fans after a Thrashers game) but also racially coded. One more reason to be glad to be rid of the France family and their buddies.

Posted by tedf at 06:11 PM | Comments (1)

March 06, 2006

Republicans After Bush

Niall Ferguson is best known as a sometimes-apologist for imperialism, but this piece from the L.A. Times on the collapse of the Bush imperial dream is spot on. (Via Ygelseias on TPMCafe.)

What creeps me, though, is the thought that the Republicans could run a sensible "maverick" like McCain or Hegel - or even just throw a sop to that chunk of the party by running one as VP with a mandate to run foreign policy at the White House) - and the party could never have to face an "accountability moment" for Bushism and all it's wrought. Maybe it's worth the tradeoff - maybe just like "only Nixon could go to China," it'll turn out that "only McCain (or Hegel, or whoever) could withdraw from Iraq." I'd probably take that over a President Hilary Clinton deciding (as she might, I fear) that she has to placate the right by staying bogged down into the next decade.

But in terms of progressive strategy, it would be a catastrophe if the collapse of Bushism, at home and abroad, weren't exploited as a crucial teaching moment. The Bush implosion should give Dems a landslide in '06 the way Watergate did for the famous reformist Dem "class of '74." (Whatever happened to them?) But I greatly fear the Dems are going to blow it through cowardice and clumsiness.

What the Dems need is a smart, coherent strategy to nationalise the '06 elections, and mobilize the base and the disaffected - young voters, nonvoters, working-class Bush supporters - to turn out in numbers the batterred and disillusioned Republicans can't match. A real "throw the bums out" environment is the way to neutralize the Republican incumbency/gerrymandering edge by making every district competitive.

In turn, following the Watergate::Plamegate/Katrinagate/Wiretappinggate/Dubaigate/etc. analogies, a successful Congressional Dem takover in '06 should set the stage for a reform-oriented, "outsider" Democrat to galvanize the party in '08 the way Carter did in '76, Hopefully, whoever shows up for that slot - whether it's John Edwards, Russ Feingold, whoever - can replace Carter's combination of strategic clumsiness and political caution with Clinton's charm and FDR's vision.

Because otherwise, paying the piper from '08-'12 - escaping Iraq, raising taxes to cut the deficit, fixing health care one way or another - is going to eat the next president, Democratic or Republican, alive. We can only hope that whoever the president is - Democrat or Republic - they have the courage to do what the country needs and make a clean break from the debacle we'll remember as the Bush Years.

Posted by tedf at 11:45 PM | Comments (1)

Scary News From The GA Legislature

Guest post from Curt:

Here's some info on what's going on with the Georgia General Assembly. I'm really disturbed...I am now counting the days until they all go back home & stop addressing the most unimportant items possible.

Their two big issues over the last two weeks has been abortion and the creation of new municipalities. On the abortion front, the Senate has passed three laws: One forces women seeking an abortion to pay to have an ultrasound before the procedure can be done - this dovetails with their earlier new law requiring a "waiting period." The second law protects pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for the "morning after" pill. The third one is less objectionable, but seems to be a smokescreen for future abortion action. This last bill would charge a criminal with two deaths if they kill a pregnant woman. Republican officials acknowledge that their goal is to force a Supreme Court test to see if the new appointees will overturn Roe v. Wade. Their actions are similar to those in other Republican Legislatures, such as South Dakota.

The other big issue this week is a bill to create two new cities in metro-Atlanta. This follows the successful fight last year to create a city of Sandy Springs. The rationale is "local control." What it really comes down to is that in many metro counties, richer parts of the county help support poorer parts. The rich people don't like that, so they want to create their own cities to spend their money in their already-affluent parts of the county. It seems the whole idea of pooling money for the greater good is under attack in metro Atlanta.

The other big issue on the horizon is, of course, immigration. There are several bills making their way through committees to punish undocumented workers and, surprisingly, the companies who hire them. It will be interested to see how hard legislators push to punish Republican business-owners who speak out against immigrants, but use them as cheap labor.

To keep up with local news, I'm following:

The Atlanta Journal Constitution
The AJC's Political Insider blog
Bill Shipps' column
Georgia for Democracy (though they don't seem to be very consistent in updating)
Peach Pundit

Posted by tedf at 04:50 PM | Comments (0)

Quote of the Night

Jon Stewart, after the stage goes wild when Three 6 Mafia shocks the Oscar crowd - and thrills presenter Queen Latifah - by winning Best Song for "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from the great Southern hip hop film Hustle & Flow:

"You know what? I think it just got a little easier in here for a pimp!"

Overall, I'm disappointed Brokeback Mountain didn't win more - I'm a huge Ang Lee fan - but I can't begrudge Crash. It's clumsy at times, but it's heartfelt and often edgy. And it showcases perhaps America's two greatest actors, Terrence Howard and Don Cheadle. I'm going to have to teach it sometime soon and see if the class can help me make more sense of it.

Coming soon: Ted's Movie Rankings for 2005 . . .

Posted by tedf at 12:33 AM | Comments (0)

March 05, 2006

More On the Not-So Solid South

Via TPM: Elon University Poll shows support for Bush at 43 percent in Southeastern states

Posted by tedf at 06:40 PM | Comments (0)

March 04, 2006

Countering Conservative Populism With Progressive Populism (John Edwards) and Reform Populism (Kinky Friedman)

This Sunday on Meet the Press:

a pair of one-time vice presidential candidates -- Democrat John Edwards and Republican Jack Kemp -- have teamed up to co-chair the Council on Foreign Relations' Independent Task Force on Russian-American Relations. The two political veterans will join us exclusively this Sunday to preview their upcoming report . . .

This is pretty funny - more like the "independent task force on finding ways to make two populist presidential wannabes sound more credible on national security."

But more power to Edwards. I still have this fantasy where he rises up as the great Southern hope who bridges populism and progressivism - the cross between Clinton and RFK who succeeds in reaching "red staters" in the polling booth just as he does in the courtroom. God knows how Hillary could manage that one - although, more power to her if she finds a way.

Somewhere out there there's room for at least reformist populism, if not progressive populism. That's why I think Kinky Friedman's campaign to be the first country-singing Jewish governor of Texas is actually going somewhere - if they don't get shafted by a bogus Texas law that requires independent candidates for governor to get 45,000 signatures from people who didn't vote in the primaries.

Conservative populism - the stuff Thomas Frank writes about in What's the Matter With Kansas - has been a very effective Republican ploy to appear to be the party of the people while serving the interersts of the rich and powerful.

But there has to be an opening for an inspiring speaker with Oprah-style interpersonal chops who can make the case for a populism of substance rather than empty "values" rhetoric - populism that supports popular initiatives such as universal health care, progressive taxation, workers' rights, environmental protection, electoral reform, and media reform.

Maybe it'll be Edwards. Maybe Hillary will rise to the challenge, though as a Southerner desperate for somebody who can play below the Mason-Dixon line, I'm exceedingly doubtful. Same goes for Russ Feingold, I'm sad to say.

But my real fear is that the Dems will go with yet another candidate who can't speak to the South the way Clinton could. National Dems seem to have written off large chunks of the South as "red states." They didn't bother to campaign here in 2004 - Georgia wasn't a "swing state." As the New Yorker's always-brilliant Hendrick Hertzberg argues here, this way of reifying shifting political allegiances into monochromatic absolutes does damaging things to our democracy. If we ever want real progressive change in this country, it's got to happen acrosss the whole red, white and blue.

Posted by tedf at 09:57 PM | Comments (0)

March 03, 2006

A Real Feminist Victory

Thanks to activist pressure, Wal-Mart has reversed its policy and will stock the so-called "Morning-After" pill.

From NARAL: Victory against Wal-Mart: A first step.

Posted by tedf at 07:15 PM | Comments (0)

Go Kinky!

Kinky Friedman for Governor: Kicking the Money Changers Out

Posted by tedf at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)

This Is Something The Netroots Should Really Push

Paul Keil, one of the new "muckrackers" hired at the expanding Talking Points Memo, reports that in the Senate, "There is a bipartisan reluctance to pass ethics reform." Democratic senators have given Republicans easy political cover on this key issue - one that's important both strategically, for the Dems to run on in the '06 elections, and progressively, if we're going to have politicians that represent the people rather than the moneyed interests.

Maybe much of the Dem establishment is as slack and corrupt as the Republicans. If so, they need to go, too. The netroots should be lighting fires under these guys, just as we did at the end of the Alito hearings. Let the Dems know that they can't take their base for granted.

Posted by tedf at 06:53 PM | Comments (0)

Welcome To The New Tedlog, Now With Tedcasting!

The Tedlog redesign is finished! Here's a quick overview of the changes:

- New header and color scheme, natch.

- Podcasting! I'll be regularly posting recorded lectures, audioblog entries, original music, and short video works to Tedcast. Several entries are already up, with more to follow very soon. To subscribe to Tedcast in iTunes, just click here. To subscribe using other podcast receivers, use this URL: feeds.feedburner.com/tedcast. Or, just download individual files from the entries on the Tedcast page.

- Several sections of the site have been folded into the new teaching area. From there, you can find class syllabi, comprehensive exam bibliographies, FAQs for grad students, the Calls for Papers database, and a collection of research links. The direct link to the CFP database is http://www.tedfriedman.com/cfps.

- The "picks" have been folded into the main blog. Look for the updated Ted Movie Database coming soon!

I'd love to hear your feedback on the new look for '06.

Posted by tedf at 06:30 PM | Comments (0)

Nate Annotates Dell's New Powerbook Wannabe

yuckybook on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Posted by tedf at 01:37 AM | Comments (0)

March 02, 2006

Switching To The Mac

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has been looking for feedback on the possibility of switching to the Mac after 20 years of PCs. Since I just made the switch myself, I sent him my advice. Here it is:

I switched from PC to Mac 6 months ago. I had all the same concerns as you - wasting my investment in PC skills and equipment, trusting one company for all my computing, paying the Mac premium, etc. The transition certainly hasn't been hassle-free, but it's definitely been worth it. The big differences are:

- The stability of OS X vs. Win XP. I practically never have to reboot OS X. If a single app locks up, I can always Force Quit without affecting other programs.

- The elegance of the Mac interface. I thought it wasn't that big a difference, but I was wrong. In all the little things, the Mac is a pleasure to use, while Windows is clunky.

- The Mac apps. Mail, Pages, and Safari are just better programs than their Microsoft counterparts - faster, smoother, with smarter feature sets. If you use iTunes on your PC, you already know how much better that is than MediaPlayer. The other Apple programs are similar improvements.

Then there's the pleasure of not sending any more of my money to Redmond. Not that Jobs & Co. are saints, but at least they've earned my dollars.

UPDATE: Over the weekend, Marshall took the plunge and bought his first Mac.

Posted by tedf at 02:37 PM | Comments (0)

March 01, 2006

Pardon Our Dust . . .

We're in the midst of a redesign here, so you may run into the occasional glitch. In meantime, let us know what you think of the new logo!

Many thanks to Nate and KT for their ongoing help with the new look for the site, and to Susan McFarlane-Alvarez for discovering the original image used on the Electric Dreams cover.

Posted by tedf at 05:59 PM | Comments (0)