Edited and expanded from a comment in salon.com's
political blog, War
Room (Premium Membership required)
Back in the 1960s, a president from Texas lied
about the reasons to go to war, and the mainstream news media did
a lousy job of covering issues that mattered to people. Underground
Newspapers were born. Scatological, rude and often amateurish,
they were also scathingly ironic, hysterically funny and sometimes
covered local news better than the newspapers of record. They were
born not of frustration with Vietnam, but of frustration
with the news media.
My mother wrote a book about the underground press, The
Open Conspiracy: What America's Angry Generation Is Saying
(non-work safe cover),
and I spent large chunks of my youth with stacks and stacks of these
things piled up on the dining room table. I didn't read many of
them, but dipped into quite a few, and helped my mother with the
index of the book. (I have a box of new ones, if collectors are
interested.) I also visited several of the underground newspaper
offices, over the years. Aside from the smell of ink vs. the actinic
smell of computers and the grimy grit of newsprint dust vs.
electrical cabling, the offices of the average underground newspaper
are not too different than the home office of a one-person web log.
Both have the feel of a work in progress, the flotsam and jetsam of a
magpie mind willing to share. Perhaps I'm romanticizing a bit; we
all need heroes.
The tone of Underground Newspapers, before they became tourist
attractions in the 70s, was decidedly nastier than blogs. This is a
function of distance and anonymity, and a reaction to the nastiness
of the McCarthy Era. You could publish a bunch of editorials and
cartoons, put it on the stands in select areas, and stand back. If
anyone had a complaint (and they did), they had to find the
publishers to tell them. Most often the publishers were above-board
and listed their office address, but it was still a hassle to write
and/or visit. If an article was published under a pseudonym and the
publisher didn't want to say who it was, you didn't know. After the
anti-commies went after anyone their sphincter said were not so good,
the Underground Press seemed like a breath of fresh air: They told
the truth, as they saw it, and weren't afraid of a
four-letter word or twelve.
The anti-war movement of the 1960s and 70s was actually the
confluence of several important movements. As the country waded
deeper into the quagmire of Vietnam, more and more mainstream people
came under the "Anti-War" umbrella, but the disparate elements still
had their own agendas. One of the earliest and most important groups
under the anti-war umbrella was the Free Speech Movement. It's easy to
forget how repressive America was in the 50s and early 60s. Local
postmasters would refuse to deliver mail that they didn't like, such
as Playboy. Anti-porn ordinances were a hodgepodge and selectively
enforced. One of my favorite Underground Newspaper stories is not on
the net (that I could find), but I saw the cover in question. One
newspaper (in California, iirc) published a cartoon (a
cartoon!) of a man giving a woman cunnilingus, and the
artist or publisher was promptly arrested. The next issue featured
the same cartoon, but in connect-the-dots format. The paper urged
readers to complete the drawing and send it in to the police so they,
too, could get arrested. I don't know how many drawings the police
got -- hundreds, apparently -- but they couldn't arrest everybody and
had to let the artist go. Now that's a protest!
The US has always been a bit anti-establishment from the anti-King
George days preceding the Revolutionary War. The end of the Vietnam
War signaled the end of the anti-war umbrella and hence the end of
political power for groups that had little in common with each other
except an abiding distrust of government. The groups didn't go away,
and much of the anti-establishment talk of the 60s associated with
liberals is now entrenched in the anti-establishment talk associated
with conservatives. That's a different essay.
What we would now call political blogging arose in the late
1990s because the World Wide Web made it possible for almost anyone
with a minimum of equipment and training to have as great a presence
as billion dollar corporations. The first ones were on the hard
right: Matt Drudge gave up trying to sling mud at Hollywood so he
could sling mud at Bill Clinton. Freepers lowered the standards of
message boards everywhere. Right wingers felt that the news media
wasn't covering the stories that mattered to them. As it
turned out, they were tools of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove and the stories that the
conservatives claimed were important turned out to be lies.
Starting in the early 90s (if not earlier) the mainstream media's
hard shift to the right destroyed the credibility of tv news and
newspapers. Bloggers, of any political persuasion, came in to fill
the credibility gap. Just like Underground Newspapers, political
blogs came about because the mainstream media is not doing its
job.
The conservative news media doesn't practice "journalism" in
any meaningful sense of the word. Most bloggers don't either, but
then few claim journalistic standards, being happy to be accurate and
tenacious.
I don't read many blogs outside the War Room and Bartcop-E.
There's too many, and I prefer the raw links from sites such as www.democraticunderground.com
(and the essential Top Ten
Conservative Idiots of the week), www.smirkingchimp.com. I
have my own radio program, Shockwave
Radio Theater, science fiction humor at its best, on a non-profit
radio station. The disadvantage: I don't get paid. The advantage:
They'll let me do almost anything within FCC guidelines. I get my
political licks in, but mainly I poke fun at everything. But I come from a journalism
background, and know good reporting when I see it. I don't see
it... and would rather get my news from reliable sources like The
Daily Show and from places that link to primary source material.
Sometimes, I even read the right-leaning blogs, but they manage to be
scatological, rude and amateurish without being funny or accurate. At
least the left-leaning blogs are funny, strive for accuracy,
tenaciously report a story where the mainstream is afraid to and are,
for the most part, polite.
I was flipping through the cable tv channels, and happened to come
across C-SPAN2, which was broadcasting live from the YearlyKos Convention in Las
Vegas. This is the first YearlyKos, which had about 1000
attendees. The media covered YearlyKoss, poorly, but at least the direct feeds were raw
source material. The C-SPAN2 coverage was of the panel about
Plamegate, and the first speaker was "Mr. Valerie Plame", Joe Wilson.
He was great as he re-told his story; funny and informative. The
panelists were smart and literate. I was very pleased to hear that
people who type all day can also speak well. The camera would
occasionally pan to the packed auditorium, and the convention
attendees looked a lot like science fiction convention attendees;
probably a lot of overlap. Indeed, if anyone out there in
dailykos-land is reading this, you should really get Bruce Schneier to speak. He
really wants to, and you really want him (trust me).
Like the early 60s, the 00s feature a lot of different groups who
don't like what's going on who are finally assembling under an
anti-war umbrella. I hope the loose coalition is enough to counter
the massive slime machine of the Republicans and money-raising
machine of the hate-mongering right-wingers. The net has changed
politics, but not a lot. Let's hope the bloggers serve the public as
well or better than the counter-culture movement over the last
quagmire. Blogs have several advantages over the underground press:
It's widely available to anyone with access to a computer, and all
issues and links are still at hand. I predict that there will always
be a place for professional journalists, if they ever reappear. Using
the net to start, the tools of journalism are available to almost
anyone with the time. What we now call "blogs" will change more than
journalism. But they have to go through some growing pains first, as
does the country.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
--////
"Politics has become a game of meaningless, mindless battles,
conducted by unscrupulous methods and people, designed to transform
even the most serious policy debates into sport." -- Al Gore 5/06
Bruce Reed: Conservatives look on the bright side of life (slate.com)
Zinsmeister's most embarrassing statement is that "the poverty level of black Americans poverty among black Americans has fallen 25 percent over the last ten years." A more accurate statement would be that African-American poverty went down every year under Clinton - falling by one-third to an all-time low - and has gone up every year under Bush. Perhaps Zinsmeister's book might have been more convincing if it hadn't come out the same week Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.
David Podvin: COMPREHENSIVE MORAL SQUALOR (makethemaccountable.com)
There exists a solution to illegal immigration. Employers must be required to verify the Social Security numbers of their workers, and any employer who hires someone lacking valid identification must be imprisoned. This approach places the burden where it belongs-on the person doing the hiring. As soon as a few chairmen of high profile companies begin doing hard time other employers will be intimidated into compliance. Unable to secure employment, undocumented workers will lose their reason for being here and return home voluntarily.
Heather Findlay: Joan Jett: Don't Hate the Sinner (afterellen.com)
Truth is, Joan Jett gives a big damn about her bad reputation. That's why, since her late-seventies stint with history's first all-girl rock band the Runaways, she has always pulled a thick black curtain between her public and private realities--even if those realities seem oddly to mirror one another.
ROGER EBERT: Sir! No Sir! (3 Stars)
Quick question: When Jane Fonda was on her "FTA" concert tour during the Vietnam era, who was in her audience? The quick answer from most people would probably be, "anti-war hippies, left-wingers and draft-dodgers." The correct answer would be: American troops on active duty, many of them in uniform.
Roger Ebert: Answer Man
What I fail to understand is why global warming should be a liberal or conservative issue. It is either happening or is not, and we can either take action to try to slow it, or we cannot. That is why a great many conservatives have agreed with Gore on this.
Robert Urban: Strangers with Candy Not Entirely Sweet 9 afterelton.com)
Strangers with Candy stars Amy Sedaris as Jerri Blank, a 47-year-old loser junky whore high school freshman with lesbian tendencies. Got that? As one might guess, the movie plays off the temptation, as well as the prohibition, implied in its name. It is a brand of comedy that invites one's sense of humor to venture where it has not dared go before.
CBS opens the night with a RERUN'King Of Queens', followed by a RERUN'How I Met Your Mother', then a RERUN'2½ Men', followed by a RERUN'Old Christine', then a RERUN'CSI: The 2nd One'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Paris Hilton and Will Shortz
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Sara Rue, Anthony Michael Hall, and Secret Machines
NBC begins the night with LIVE'NHL Hockey', and pads prime time on the left coast with local crap & maybe an old 'Dateline'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Keanu Reeves, Joey Lauren Adams, and Gnarls Barkley.
On a RERUNConan (from 12/7/05) are Lindsay Lohan, Colin Hanks, and Coldplay.
On a RERUNCarson Daly it's TBA.
ABC starts the night with a FRESH'Wife Swap', followed by a FRESH'Supernanny', then the SERIES PREMIERE'How To Get The Guy'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel are Dane Cook, Brett Ratner, and Tyler Snyder.
The WB offers a RERUN'7th Heaven', followed by another RERUN'7th Heaven'.
Faux has the SEASON PREMIERE'Hell's Kitchen'.
UPN has a RERUN'One On One', followed by a RERUN'All Of Us', then a RERUN'Girlfriends', followed by a RERUN'Half & Half'.
A&E has 'Cold Case Files', 'Look, Up In The Sky! Amazing Story Of Supperman', and 'Rock, Paper, Scissors Championship'.
AMC offers the movie 'The Day The Earth Stood Still', followed by the movie 'From Russia With Love', then the movie 'Octopussy'.
BBC -
[2:00 pm] 'As Time Goes By' - Episode 3;
[2:40 pm] 'Are You Being Served' - Oh What a Tangled Web;
[3:20 pm] 'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 3;
[4:00 pm] 'My Hero' - Episode 6;
[4:40 pm] 'My Family' - Ep 1 Fitting Punishment;
[5:20 pm] 'My Family' - Ep 2 They Shoot Harpers, Don't They?;
[6:00 pm] 'BBC World News';
[6:30 pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Tredwen;
[7:00 pm] 'The Benny Hill Show' - Episode 37;
[8:00 pm] 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' - Episode 8;
[8:30 pm] 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' - Episode 8;
[9:00 pm] 'Frances Tuesday' - Episode 1;
[10:30 pm] 'Unsolved' - Episode 5;
[11:00 pm] 'Hex' - Episode 1;
[1:00 am] 'Frances Tuesday' - Episode 1;
[2:30 am] 'Unsolved' - Episode 5;
[3:00 am] 'Murder in Suburbia' - Episode 4;
[4:00 am] 'Murder in Suburbia' - Episode 5;
[5:00 am] 'Murder in Suburbia' - Episode 6;
[6:00 am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'West Wing', 'Inside The Actors Studio', and 'Three Of Hearts: A Postmodern Family'.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Joe Dirt', an old 'Jon Stewart', an old 'Colbert Report', 'Mind Of Mencia', 'South Park', 'Blue Collar TV', and another 'Blue Collar TV'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJon Stewart is Thomas Friedman.
Scheduled on a FRESHColbert Report is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'UFO Files: Canada's Roswell', 'Vikings Voyage', and 'Pharaoh's Lost Treasure'.
IFC -
[6:00 AM] Confessions of a Dangerous Mind;
[8:00 AM] George Washington;
[9:45 AM] Lulu On The Bridge;
[11:30 AM] IFC Short Film Collection II: June;
[1:30 PM] Joe The King;
[3:15 PM] George Washington;
[4:45 PM] Lulu On The Bridge;
[6:45 PM] Joe The King;
[8:30 PM] The Henry Rollins Show #11;
[9:00 PM] Yo Soy Boricua, Pa'que Tu Lo Sepas!;
[10:30 PM] At The IFC Center #14;
[11:00 PM] Killing Zoe;
[12:45 AM] IFC In Theaters;
[1:00 AM] Yo Soy Boricua, Pa'que Tu Lo Sepas!;
[2:30 AM] At The IFC Center #14;
[3:00 AM] Killing Zoe;
[4:45 AM] Chop Socky: Cinema Hong Kong;
[5:45 AM] Short: Moment of Clarity. (ALL TIMES EDT)
SciFi fills the night with 'The Poseidon Adventure'.
Sundance -
[06:05 AM] Theo & Thea (and the 7 Dwarfs);
[08:00 AM] Hanna K.;
[10:00 AM] Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness;
[10:15 AM] Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man;
[11:15 AM] The Last Days;
[12:45 PM] How to Draw a Bunny;
[02:15 PM] Who Is Bernard Tapie?;
[03:15 PM] El Cielito;
[05:00 PM] The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam;
[06:30 PM] Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man;
[07:30 PM] How to Draw a Bunny;
[09:00 PM] Keep Not Silent;
[10:00 PM] The Human Behavior Experiments;
[11:15 PM] Karl Lagerfeld is Never Happy Anyway;
[12:15 AM] Condor: The First War on Terror;
[01:45 AM] L'eau Froide;
[03:25 AM] Fellini's Casanova. (ALL TIMES EDT)
In this photo released by Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, Cindy Crawford poses for a photo as she joined childhood cancer survivors and physicians during the hospital's 15th annual Celebrate Life with HOPE event, Sunday, June 11, 1006, at Paramount Studios in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. Several hundred cancer survivors, from infants to adults, were reunited with their doctors and nurses from the hospital's Childrens Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases.
Photo by Bob Riha Jr.
The English-language Al-Jazeera International TV network faces enough hurdles to make Olympic champion Edwin Moses tremble.
It has missed its target launch date and won't set another, has no public commitments by anyone to show it in the United States, saw its closest competitor beat it to the market and is the target of a pressure campaign by a group hoping it never airs here.
Al-Jazeera International's operators are nonetheless pressing forward with plans to create a worldwide news operation, despite a name that immediately raises hackles in the West.
Its most prominent U.S. hire, former ABC newsman Dave Marash, said AJI wants to do the kind of reporting that he did on "Nightline" with Ted Koppel. Well-known British broadcaster David Frost has also signed on.
Singer Lou Reed performs during the Isle of Wight Festival at Seaclose Park in Newport on the Isle of Wight June 11, 2006.
Photo by Alessia Pierdomenico
Winnie the Pooh has been voted the nation's favorite animal character in a new survey, heading a list dominated by iconic bears like Paddington and Rupert.
Pooh, created by A.A. Milne, won 51 percent of the vote in the survey, against Paddington's 41 percent.
The Jungle Book's Baloo the bear was third with 32 percent, just one point ahead of Black Beauty and two ahead of Rupert in fifth.
Conducted among 1,191 adults, it gave Ashlan the lion from "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" 30 percent along with Rupert, Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit 28 percent and Toad from "The Wind in the Willows" 27 percent.
"Ghost Whisperer" creator John Gray has inked a new two-year deal with Touchstone Television to continue as executive producer and showrunner on the CBS series starring Jennifer Love Hewitt.
He also will continue to write and direct episodes of the supernatural drama from Touchstone TV and CBS Paramount Network TV, which is returning for a second season in the fall.
Gray wrote and directed the pilot as well as the two-part first-season finale. He also will write and direct the two-hour second-season opener as well as two or three more episodes next season.
Chita Rivera, left, and Bebe Neuwirth present the Tony for Best Choreography during the 60th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall, Sunday, June 11, 2006 in New York.
Photo by Jeff Christensen
Receiving medals instead of statuettes, 13 young filmmakers were honored Saturday for their short films at the 33rd annual Student Academy Awards.
Director Kevin Smith and actress Nia Vardalos were among the presenters at the ceremony at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
The awards were presented in four categories to students from nine colleges and universities by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which hands out the Oscars every year.
"Mission: Impossible III" has been cleared for a July 18 opening in China after negotiations ended with agreements to make some cuts to the movie, some of which are understood to involve scenes of violence.
"M:I-3," which has grossed about $192 million outside the United States since its May 5 release, was submitted in mid-April for approval in Beijing, as is standard procedure in China. It promptly met with complaints from communist censors about scenes of violence and shots depicting parts of Shanghai as a slum.
Yuan Wenqiang, deputy manager of the import-export arm of state-run industry giant China Film Group Corp., confirmed here that "M:I-3" would be released in mid-July, after a seasonal summer blackout of foreign films ends. This blackout runs through July 11.
A singer whose songs have topped the Billboard dance chart was attacked by a group yelling anti-gay slurs, and four people were arrested on hate-crime charges, police and his publicist said.
Kevin Aviance, 38, underwent surgery for a broken jaw after the attack Saturday, said his publicist, Len Evans. Police said the singer, whose song "Alive" hit the top of the chart in 2002, was in stable condition.
A group of six or seven men attacked Aviance early Saturday, and passers-by did not stop to help as they threw objects at him, Evans said.
Actor Alan Cumming, left, and Cyndi Lauper arrive for the 60th annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York, Sunday, June 11, 2006.
Photo by Seth Wenig
Hundreds of nude cyclists pedalled around Spanish cities on Saturday to protest against car-clogged streets and demand greater respect for pollution-free transport.
With slogans like "one car less" and "bio methanol" painted on their backs, the naked cyclists staged Spain's third annual Ciclonudista or "Nudecycle" in Madrid, Barcelona and Pamplona.
The protest was part of world-wide naked bike riding events on Saturday across Europe, North America and South America.
An approximately hundred foot slab of Ice falls from the face of the Margerie Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, on Friday, June 9 2006.
Photo by Dr. Scott M. Lieberman
An imprisoned private investigator accused of eavesdropping on Hollywood celebrities called the federal wiretapping case against him bogus and reiterated a promise that he would not testify against his former clients.
Anthony Pellicano spoke via telephone to the Los Angeles Times in his first interview since he was indicted by a grand jury in February. He has pleaded not guilty to more than 100 counts and is awaiting trial on charges of wiretapping such stars as Sylvester Stallone and paying two police officers to run names, including comedians Garry Shandling and Kevin Nealon, through a government database.
Fourteen people, including Pellicano, have been charged with various counts, including wire fraud and conspiracy. Six people have pleaded guilty, including "Die Hard" director John McTiernan, for making false statements to an FBI agent, and former Hollywood Records president Robert Pfeifer, who admitted hiring Pellicano to wiretap the phone of his former girlfriend.
Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano smokes early Sunday, June 11, 2006 outside Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Hundreds of poor farmers concerned about their crops and livestock have been returning to the slopes of Indonesia's ash-spewing Mount Merapi after weeks of eruptions of hot gasses, lava, and ash.
Photo by Ed Wray
Ernest Hemingway arrived at the recently opened Sun Valley Lodge in 1939 as one of a string of celebrities invited there in hope of attracting more tourists.
Nearly 70 years later - and 45 years after the Nobel Prize winner's death in this central Idaho mountain town - the resort area is still cashing in.
Everyone from merchandisers to hoteliers have found a way to make money from him: signed first editions of his novels are being sold for five figures; a dinner at his former home costs $1,000 a plate; and the town where he killed himself holds a Hemingway festival during the traditionally slow fall season, transforming one of the country's most recognizable writers into Papa the Pitchman.
Franca Austral whales, also known as 'Right whale,' swim in La Cantera beach in Puerto Madryn, some 1470 km (913 miles) south of Buenos Aires, June 11, 2006.
Photo by Marcos Brindicci
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