Q: Why can't you trust the media to tell you which way the wind blows?

A: The current top headlines, via Google News:


You kids can feel free to refer to this post when claiming the media- controlled pollsters are all screwed up vis-a-vis President-Elect Ron Paul.

Q: In what manner am I going to rock you?

Hint: Not like a tsunami.

A: Look, I know my efforts to get to the West Coast have been an ongoing comedy of automotive error, leaving me to delay my arrival continually and now indefinitely, but this is ridiculous!

• Dean blows chaos into travel plans

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ALT. JOKE: Look, I know I'm hard on our Southern neighbors for producing probably the worst Attorney General in American history, but this is ridiculous!

• Mexico braces for Dean's fury

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ALT. ALT. JOKE, CUZ C'MON, I ONLY GET ONE HURRICANE: Look, I know I hate the Yucatan Peninsula with all my heart, but this is —

• Oh, shit, this one's not very funny at all

Never mind.

(That reminds me, did I ever blog about the time I was a journalist traveling in Haiti a couple months after Hurricane Ivan, and I spent a few hours in the devastated city of Gonaïves, conversing in broken Franglish with a 20-something man who repeatedly and dispassionately stated "Je suis un zombie," because his home and workplace had been destroyed, and both his parents killed, by the mudslides that inevitably follow tropical storms in Haiti (thanks to decades of deforestation and environmental recklessness perpetrated by exploitative consumerist nations such as the United States), leaving him with nothing to do but wander the countryside, starving and alone — a conversation that forced me, for the first time, to confront the unresolvable horror of the majority of human existence, shattering my faith in the restorative powers of journalism and propelling me headlong into a state of confusion, guilt, and terrified detachment forever? BECAUSE IT'S A REAL GAS.)

I'd uploaded this song by the Scorpions, but now it seems kind of gauche.

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RELATED: Hurricane Dean in pictures | More [BBC]

Q: Was I maybe too hard on you, TMZ.com?

A: Right now on Google News:


Kudos to NBC-4 for realizing that if you really want to understand the emotional depth of this story, you're going to need a lot of cocaine.

EARLIER: R.I.P. America's dignity.

Q: David Halberstam: Journalist...OR WAS HE!?

A: That's just what the Germans want you to believe!

INSIDEBAYAREA.COM: Reputed Journalist Killed in Crash

Okay, let's do our friends over at insidebayarea.com a favor and brush up on some vocab.

Reputed: putative: commonly put forth or accepted as true on inconclusive grounds; "the foundling's putative father"; "the reputed (or purported) author of the book"; "the supposed date of birth".

Saying David Halberstam was a "reputed journalist" suggests that his status as a journalist is in question. It's like saying, "Alleged Former President of Russia Dies of Heart Failure". It only makes sense if InsideBayArea hates David Halberstam.

(Which would be unthinkable, since Halberstam was one of the great truth-tellers in an age of "inoperative" statements, and a superlative chronicler of sports in an age of dumb white guys who don't know a goddamned thing about sports. His sudden accidental death is unquestionably tragic.)

Reputed journalist David Halberstam, left, allegedly wore glasses while reporting from what he claimed was the Mekong Delta.

A certain unnamed sexy teenage friend of mine suggests that the copy editor here meant to use the adjective "reputed" as a form of the noun "repute," "the state of being held in high esteem and honor." But you can't just go around turning nouns into adjectives! IT WOULD BE MASS CHAOS!!!

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KNBC: Police Kill Reputed Gang Member in Shootout

Alas, he was among our most esteemed Crips.

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MORE ON DAVID HALBERSTAM:

• A Skeptical Vietnam Voice Still Echoes in the Fog of Iraq [NYT]
• The Salon Interview: David Halberstam
• Halberstam on Journalism [NYT]
• Halberstam talks to Steve Inskeep about the parallels between today and the Vietnam era [NPR]
• Interview: Halberstam's Hit Streak Continues [Powells]
• The Best and the Brightest and other books by David Halberstam [Amazon]

Q: Really, Los Angeles Times? Did you have to go with "explodes"?

A: And don't even think about trying to pin this one on Brian Grazer.

LA TIMES: Rate of drug-resistant gonorrhea explodes

Q: Are recording industry execs the puppetmasters for the entire Canadian government?

A: YES!!!!! Or...wait. No.

Boing Boing, the "directory of wonderful things," is one of the world's finest blogs -- if not the finest -- for the huge output of consistently cool stuff it showcases every day. But one post yesterday, by Boinger Cory Doctorow, struck me as uncharacteristically dumb: Canadian Heritage Minister Oda in the pocket of recording execs, pulling from this piece by Canuck blogger and University of Ottawa professor Dr. Michael Geist. This is the BB post, in its entirety:

Michael sez, "Following a debate on CBC Radio with Canadian Recording Industry Association President Graham Henderson, Michael Geist is reporting that according to documents recently obtained under the Access to Information Act, last year eleven professional organizations representing most Canadian copyright holders in the music industry, including songwriters, composers, performers, record producers, and publishers, wrote to Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda and Industry Minister Maxime Bernier to reject CRIA's new opposition to the private copying system and to 'express their reservations concerning the legal protection of technological measures used to limit access to, or reproduction of, musical works.'

"Moreover, the government documents reveal incredible access for CRIA to the highest levels of the Canadian government. CRIA was busy arranging an event for government officials within days of the election which led to a sponsored lobby session on March 2nd that included a government-funded lunch and a private meeting with Minister Oda. New documents reveal that this was merely the tip of the iceberg. Four weeks later (on April 1st), CRIA hosted a private lunch at the Juno Awards for Bev Oda featuring Henderson and the presidents of the major music labels followed by an artist roundtable. Six weeks after that (on May 16th), Graham Henderson was granted another meeting with Bev Oda, this time to counter the news that the indie labels had left CRIA and that the CMCC had launched." Link (Thanks, Michael!)

Doctorow seems to have just cut and pasted an emailed press release from Dr. Geist. While that's not a problem in itself -- sometimes, posting a dozen+ daily missives to your blog means not having time to add insightful commentary -- does the text itself even close to justify the conspiracy implied in the alarmist headline?

Take note: X-Files was filmed in Vancouver, not set there.

The entire first paragraph can be summed up as, Last year, eleven representatives for the music industry wrote letters to the Canadian Heritage and Industry Ministers. Um, so the fuck what? Individuals and organizations write letters to government officials all the time. It's usually more a formality than anything else, as most government officials don't have time to read their mail (although this is quaint, adorable Canada we're talking about, so maybe things are different).

The second paragraph reports that the CRIA (the Northern equivalent of the RIAA) has "incredible access to the highest levels of Canadian government," indicating a lobby session, luncheon and private meeting with Oda. OH MY GOD! CALL OLIVER STONE! Or...no, wait, that sounds like standard operating procedure for a governmental official's dealings with a large corporate body; big business does have better access to government than the average citizen. We knew that already.

But wait! "New documents reveal that this was merely

Take note: Iceberg big, tip small.

the tip of the iceberg"!!! The rest of the iceberg? Another luncheon the following month. And another private meeting six weeks later. Hey, isn't the iceberg supposed to be bigger than the tip of the iceberg? Either Geist is on very thin ice, or these luncheon involved a lot of iceberg lettuce. Which would indeed be a disgrace, as iceberg lettuce offers very little nutritional value.

Look, it pains me to offer a defense of the greedy Luddites of the recording industry, who are no stranger to alarmist declarations themselves. And I was greatly amused by Boing Boing's Monday post providing photographic evidence of just how backwards the industry can be.

I also understand that it must be very tempting to rush such material to one's blog, if only because attacks on record moguls, the Bush administration, the PS3 and/or the Zune greatly improves one's chances of hitting the front page of Digg.

Maybe Oda really is in the pocket of the Canadian record industry; maybe the recording industry controls the cabal of Jews who, of course, control all the world's governments. But if the record industry is calling the shots, our governments make for a terrible lapdog, because piracy is as rampant as ever.

So maybe we should stop making paranoid claims under the guise of breaking news, and start kicking back and enjoying that new Andrew Bird album.

Q: Was headline also partly swallowed by shark?

Australian diver says partly swallowed by shark [Reuters]

A: No, Reuters just hired Borat as a copy editor. They simply adore his coverage of the Jews.

Q: What is this morning's least surprising news development? Or should we just call it a three-million way tie?

It's probably a bad sign for the state of international journalism when you look at the morning's headlines and the only surprising answer is in the weather forecast.

Lake Erie: Beginning to look a lot like Christmas?

Not that I'm complaining about the forecast, mind you; I was just outside, and it's a balmy 52°. After this post, I'm heading straight for the beach. Surf's up, beyotch!!

But while I've no problem with thermometers hearkening back to bygone days, I find it disconcerting that the rest of the news is headed the same direction.

Granted, we all approach the news these days expecting a bit of recycled material. You know, things like United States trapped in meaningless quagmire, or Kremlin murders guy who says bad things about Kremlin, or Israeli/Palestinian relations growing tense or Republican president is idiot. It's the nature of history to repeat itself, and the nature of journalists to barely notice. I get all that.

Still, something about today feels even more recycled-er than ever. I initially thought maybe Google News was running a "greatest hits" compilation of the past year, or the past 30 years -- or the past 130 years, considering that Jack the Ripper is evidently still murdering British hookers.

Four stories in particular, though, stand out as particularly unsurprising. Help me choose the unsurprisingest!

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THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO DUH

1) IRAQ WAR = UNPOPULAR: Americans Say U.S. Is Losing War [WaPo]

Look, anyone who reads this blog regularly, which is at least three people, knows that I have always supported things that make the Bush administration look bad (e.g., reality). But the daily polls revealing that people think the war is going poorly -- am I still expected to find this fascinating? Do newspaper editors think I wake up each morning to thoughts of, "Gosh, I wonder if the past 24 hours of bloody mayhem and chaos have led Americans to embrace the war enthusiastically! Where can I get some numbers on that?"

2) JEWS = NUCLEAR: Israel's Olmert under fire over nuclear remarks [Reuters]

Lehrer: 'Who's dated now, bitch?'

Granted, I do appreciate the rather awkward faux pas-ness of this story. The old, "I'm sorry, did I just say we had nuclear weapons? What I meant to say was HEY WHAT'S THAT OVER THERE [runs away]." That's just solid Borscht Belt humor.

My issue with this is more, Since when did we not know Israel had the bomb? I totally didn't know it was supposed to be a secret. Frankly, I'm just glad it wasn't me who let the cat out of the bag. Granted, I base all my information on who does or doesn't have the bomb on a 40-year-old Tom Lehrer song.

3) DAVID DUKE = BIGOT: KKK's David Duke Tells Iran Holocaust Conference That Gas Chambers Not Used to Kill Jews [FOX Cleveland]

You know, I'm just blue-skying here, but it seems like we're getting to a point where we can't trust David Duke's insight on sensitive ethnic issues anymore. I don't want to jump the gun or anything.

Actually, I have to disqualify this story's lack of surprisingness, because I find it way too hilarious that (a) David Duke still gets speaking-engagement work, and (b) in Iran. Let's just pray he's being shadowed by a documentarian, because Live from Tehran, It's David Duke! is going to be the There's Something About Mary of 2007.


4) ANGELINA JOLIE = HOMEWRECKER: Jolie Fell in Love with Pitt while He Was Still Married [E Canada Now]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, so that's how she got inseminated by his sperm!

Q: What, the old headline wasn't condescending enough?

A: Thanks, New York Times. Way to rub it in.

• Yes, You Can Surf in Cleveland, Before the Brown Water Freezes [NYT]

EARLIER: Yes, You Can Surf in Cleveland

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RED SCARE: On Friday -- the day after the Hard Rock Cafe became big business news -- Reuters ran a completely unrelated feature on Don Bernstine, the Hard Rock's "memorabilia hunter."

The story's author, Jonathan Oatis, apparently wasn't aware of the impending sale of the chain to the Florida Seminole tribe when he wrote the story, but Bernstine might have had an inkling...

Don Bernstine travels the world visiting rock stars in their homes and backstage and spends tens of thousands of dollars of his employer's money buying guitars, concert costumes and other music memorabilia.

So, it's no surprise that the Hard Rock Cafe's memorabilia hunter says he'll give up his job when someone pries it from his "cold, dead fingers."

Jeez, kemosabe, put down your dukes! The whole Custer's-last-stand routine is sooooo 1876.

Besides, what makes you so paranoid about getting axed? You think an organization of Native Americans will be somehow uncomfortable with the concept of being taught to hunt by a white man?

Oh, wait...

EARLIER: Rumored New Policies at the Hard Rock Cafe

Q: Does what goes around come around, and also vice versa?

A: You best believe it, bitches. And when I say "bitches," I mean "esteemed readers." Anywaysies: for evidence of the above eternal truth, look no further than tonight's karma-heavy headlines.

#1) The Toronto Star: Church to probe priest who fondled Foley.

Dayyyayumn, church! That is some serious eye-for-an-eye shit, Old Testament-stizzazz!

Now all we need is for several congressional pages to rape that church's congregation, and the circle of fuck will finally be complete. At which point we can go back to our normal lives, hunting down the killer of JonBenet Ramsey.

#2) MLB.com: Cameras notice spot on [Kenny] Rogers' hand.

Wow. The implications of this story are so intense, I can't even begin to make sense of them. In fact, I have literally no idea what any of that story means.

Do note, however, that the cameras were probably biased, as they have sought revenge on Kenny Rogers ever since he punched one of them in the face a year ago. Revenge is sweet, isn't it, cameras? Not sweet enough to mess with Rogers' bizarre mutation into Cy Young, but sweet nonetheless. Or whatever.

The moral of the story is, don't fuck with cameras or Florida churches, unless you want to get accused of cheating and anally violated. If you enjoy both, however, I recommend punching a cameraman at a Miami baptism.