Wolf in iPod clothing

So, because it's 70 degrees out and I'd rather do anything than sit at work and complete the second most boring task possible for an editor/writer (the most boring is transcription; the second most boring is highlighting that transcription for quotes in a later article ... zzzzz....), and because I can't actually go out just yet, I've decided to blow a few minutes with a meme. The iPod Shuffle Oracle meme, that is. Here is the future, as told by the random selection of songs on my iPod.

How does the world see you?
I Feel Possessed, Crowded House (somewhat literal, but okay)

Will I have a happy life?
Psychobabble, Alan Parsons Project (not a good projection)

What do my friends really think of me?
Wolves, Lower, R.E.M. (frightening, actually)

Do people secretly lust after me?
Stars Crash Down, Hue & Cry (no idea on this one)

How can I make myself happy?
Endurance, Martin Stephenson (arguably, yes, though this sounds like a spam ad)

What should I do with my life?
Yakety Yak, The Coasters (strangely, this is accurate)

Will I ever have children?
Monday, The Jam (a little too soon for me)

What is some good advice for me?
Being Boring, The Pet Shop Boys (never, I say, never! er....)

How will I be remembered?
The Perfect Kiss, New Order (thanks, Bernard, no problem there)

What is my signature dancing song?
America, Simon & Garfunkel (something's amiss here....)

What do I think my current theme song is?
Enjoy the Silence, Depeche Mode (maybe this goes along with all the Yaketing and Possessing and Being Boring)

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
Working My Way Back To You, Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons (c'mon people, you can do better)

What song will play at my funeral?
Lifeline, Spandau Ballet (contradictory, I suppose)

What type of men/women do you like?
Thanksgiving, Boo Hewerdine (all turkeys?)

What is my day going to be like?
Werewolves of London, Warren Zevon (two wolves? in one oracle? and me a vegetarian?)

The iPod Oracle needs appeasement, I think.

The Thunder From Up Under, Part 2

The recent Bill Napoli "Minimum Security" cartoon by Stephanie McMillan that's been making the rounds will now be auctioned off at Ebay. Proceeds will go to Planned Parenthood and the Oglala Sioux Tribe. The auction is here. It also includes the address for the Oglala Sioux Tribe, which I reproduce here, for when the Ebay auction ends:

Oglala Sioux Tribe
Attn: President Fire Thunder
P. O. Box 2070
Pine Ridge, SD 57770


via Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Take Me, I'm Yours

So. Glenn Tilbrook. If you have to ask who, probably best to skip this entry.

VH1 Classic was having a little get-together Monday night for some ad people and other individuals of dubious importance, and I'd been included. The purpose: Come have some cocktails and watch a short set by former Squeeze guy Glenn Tilbrook. As the 80s whore that I am, I just had to do it. Even though I figured it would probably be about 20 minutes worth of stuff I'd never heard (to promote whatever the new record was) and 10 minutes of classics and then g'bye and g'luck. I also assumed they were taping it for later airing.

None of the above. Glenn was there as our entertainment only, and I have to say that despite the wine and Amstel perhaps buoying my experience, he really kicked some ass. I've never seen Squeeze or Tilbrook live before, but for one guy with two guitars (the traditional and a 12-string) he really whooped it up for us. There was the behind-the-head playing pictured above (prior to which he insisted we simply watch him from the chest-level up), the raising of the beer to all of us, and encouraging us to toast with him between songs, the jumping off the stage to play, the leading us through "Black Coffee In Bed's" "da-doot-doo-doo-doo's" and making us the chorus on "Picadilly." He noted there would be a major motion picture about the formation of Squeeze out in 2009 (all tongue in cheek, natch) with Jude Law as himself, Ray Winstone as Chris Difford, and some unsavory actor whose name now escapes me as Jools Holland. It may be the same patter he uses at ever gig, but to his credit: Doesn't sound like it.

I also got lucky and later on managed to have a chat with the man (as well as some whiskey, yay us) and he was patient enough with my general non-Squeeze ignorance of what he's been doing, since, oh, say, the late 1990s. He told me about touring in an RV, of going out on the road into small clubs now, and so forth. Having now done a little digging I realize just to what extent his patience was with me, and I'm all the more humbled: Last week VH1 Classics aired a movie directed by Amy Pickering of his jaunts, and of course he's playing in New York City Friday night. Of course it would have been assholey for him to assume I knew all and to act as if I was just ignorant; instead, I have a lot of respect for the guy. And he was nice, at the same time.

I am glad that I thanked him for the show, though. Really great, sweaty stuff. And, of course, that unmistakable voice. Has anything ever sounded quite so rich and full and quirky and elliptical all at the same time? I think not. We should all be as happy in our work as he appears to be, some 30 years after cutting his first record. Nobody said it would be easy to go from stadiums to the back room at VH1 Classic, and he manages it with classy aplomb.

Roll the dice

Some of us are gamblers. Some of us like sports. And some will bet on whether a dime will land heads up or not. Me, I like board games. Always have. Not every one, mind you, and not all the time. But one of the consequences of The Big Austin Move is that the board games that once languished in mom's icy basement on the top of a big white set of shelves, gathering mouse droppings and dust (and Lord knows what else) is that my favorites have now been transferred to New York. They now sit on the bottom of a big wooden shelf and sometimes gather dust (no mouse droppings, mercifully), but lately I've been working on changing that.

You can't just ask anyone to play a board game. Even if they're your friend. Good friends might roll their eyes a bit and put up with one, but to find someone you want to play with, who won't either get too pissy competitive or to whom you could reasonably live with losing to, is rare. Recently, since I have a friend who is staying over for a couple of weeks while she gets a gig and permanent housing, I've been in clover. Most nights it's too busy around the apartment to consider it, but once or twice a week, when I'm not out late and have approximately 65% of my brain cells on full, and when we can put on "House" or "Law & Order: SVU" or "Lost" and multi-task, we've been breaking out the board games.



C and I started with the old classic of Monopoly. I got mine at a birthday party -- can't remember which one -- in the early 1980s. The board died a bad death years ago, but we had a spare board because my brother's bat mitzvah was ... wait for it ... Monopoly themed. The board from my party got used; his sat in the basement, unplayed for about 17 years before we moved it. Make that 20. So I have a brand new Monopoly board, lots of pieces to play with, all of the cards and money, and sadly too few houses and hotels. Despite getting all the Kentucky-Illinois-Indiana and Ventnor-Marvin Gardens-Atlantic trifectas, C landed most of the rest of the board. We split Park and Boardwalk, so no one won that downhill slope, and I ended up with Baltic-Mediterranean, which I always land on and always buy like a sucker because I feel sorry for them. Two dollars for rent, please!

Anyway, I lost.



We moved on to one of my all-time favorites in Life. And not just some modern version of the famous game ... no, this is Mom's life. So to speak. Mom's life, with the copyright on the box lid of 1960. A dated Life is the best game ever, because while you circle around picking up peg-headed babies and spouses, you also have a salary coming to you. You're a doctor! $20K salary to you. You're a journalist! $10K to you. This is a never-ending source of amusement to me.



My friend Rebecca came over and played once; she's straight as a pin and has two little ones, but decided to go and have a lesbian marriage when they hit the church. A little subversive humor for a 1960s game that features Art Linkletter on the cover touting the family nature of the enterprise. And, of course the lid announcing it's a 3-D action game! Life has nothing on Castle Wolfenstein, I guess.

I won this one; unlike real-Life, there are many chances to land on inheritances and other such major windfalls: I kept picking up $100K bills like they were candy. Sigh.



We also recently delved into PayDay!, a game so boring even as children we realized it wasn't any good, and jazzed up the board with pencilled-in extras. (I'm stunned to see it's still around, in a 30th Anniversary edition. Mine looks like the cartoonist from Schoolhouse Rock did the illustrations, which seems about right for the time period.) Unlike Life, which provides faux-Life bonuses of $100K or more, PayDay! Is a little too much like real life to get a lot of enjoyment out of it as an adult. The board is a calendar, and as you travel through the months, you get a paycheck ($325 monthly, yikes), get mail (complete with junk), entertain guests, play the lottery, buy a washing machine and so on. Who wants to entertain themselves with a speeded-up version of real life? Yet this game persists.

What's struck me about each of these games, though, is the ghostly whiff of childhood memories that come at me every time we lift a lid. My brother Craig and I were (when not battling over something wholly insignificant) inveterate board game players. It was one of the few times when we knew the rules, and made certain we stated the rules to one another ahead of time, and therefore there was to be no crying in baseball once the game turned sour for one of us. (Being older, this usually meant me winning but in such a way that he couldn't say I cheated.) We were all about the rules. What happens to Community Chest money you have to pay? Put it under Free Parking, of course. (Who really doesn't do that, anyhow.) Who gets the Free Parking money? The person who rolls three doubles in a row. And yes, you get to go again if you get doubles. And so on. That childhood whiff of memory isn't like one of those soppy Hallmark moments where you think, "Ah, those were the days." It's more like remembering the rigid necessity of boundaries we needed as kids -- and which we insisted on imposing even when we weren't being watched. And yet there's good stuff in those layers, too -- board games, when we set it up right, were one of the couple of areas my brother and I came to a meeting of the minds. I didn't like playing sports with him, and he wasn't usually up for a long bout of stuffed animal play, so most of the time we were on opposite ends of the spectrum.



Oddly, PayDay!, awful as it was, was the best game we ever played, I think. As much as it stinks now, the fact that it stunk then (and had lots of extra space in the calendar days) meant we could make up our own bonuses. Days which nothing happened at all (and really, how stupid is it to design a game which has four squares of 31 in which nothing occurs) we allowed for small money bonuses. Didn't have a "Deal" card? Go back two spaces and pick one up. We had one square for "all debts off" which meant you could keep your bills until you passed that spot; if you landed on it, you were in the clear. (And how great would life be if we had a day like that each month?) We were probably in our early adolescence when we showed Parker Bros. a thing or two with that game, and had lots of fun with it after that. And no matter how bad that game really was, that makes it my favorite: It did the one thing no other board game has ever done, then or since. Win or lose, for an hour or two, we weren't just siblings: We were partners.

I Mess With Texas, Part 12

They just make it so bloody easy.

Texas arresting people in bars for being drunk
Wed Mar 22, 6:05 PM ET

Texas has begun sending undercover agents into bars to arrest drinkers for being drunk, a spokeswoman for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission said on Wednesday.

The first sting operation was conducted recently in a Dallas suburb where agents infiltrated 36 bars and arrested 30 people for public intoxication, said the commission's Carolyn Beck.

Being in a bar does not exempt one from the state laws against public drunkenness, Beck said.

The goal, she said, was to detain drunks before they leave a bar and go do something dangerous like drive a car.

"We feel that the only way we're going to get at the drunk driving problem and the problem of people hurting each other while drunk is by crackdowns like this," she said.

"There are a lot of dangerous and stupid things people do when they're intoxicated, other than get behind the wheel of a car," Beck said. "People walk out into traffic and get run over, people jump off of balconies trying to reach a swimming pool and miss."

She said the sting operations would continue throughout the state.

That said, once again music proves smarter, braver and better than the whole rest of the state combined. The redeeming factor for Texas today? The Dallas-formed Dixie Chicks, whose new song will begin playing once you go to the site). "Not Ready To Make Nice" is not just a kick-ass track, it's their raised finger in the air in reference to the 2003 controversy (singer Natalie Maines said on a London stage that she was embarrassed that Shrub was from Texas) that led to their main fanbase turning on them and boycotting their music.

Some lyrics:

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

Let's just hope the Chicks don't try to drink in a Texas bar. Because, you know, they might get drunk. And then arrested. And then charged with common sense.

The Thunder From Up Under

Now, I'm not so sure where I stand on Native American sovereignty. On the one hand, they most certainly got f-ed over 20 ways to Sunday in the whole land-grab of the early U.S., and are rarely getting better today, casinos aside. On the other hand, I recognize that long-term, the notion of nations-within-nations is probably going to cause major headaches, legally. But for now it seems to be a balancing act both sides are ready to handle.

That said, I'm all for Native American soverignty in this case:

Giago: Oglala Sioux president on state abortion law
Tuesday, March 21, 2006

"When Governor Mike Rounds signed HB 1215 into law it effectively banned all abortions in the state with the exception that it did allow saving the mother’s life. There were, however, no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. His actions, and the comments of State Senators like Bill Napoli of Rapid City, SD, set of a maelstrom of protests within the state.

Napoli suggested that if it was a case of “simple rape,” there should be no thoughts of ending a pregnancy. Letters by the hundreds appeared in local newspapers, mostly written by women, challenging Napoli’s description of rape as “simple.” He has yet to explain satisfactorily what he meant by “simple rape.”

The President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, was incensed. A former nurse and healthcare giver she was very angry that a state body made up mostly of white males, would make such a stupid law against women.

“To me, it is now a question of sovereignty,” she said to me last week. “I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.”

Strong words from a very strong lady. I hope Ms. Fire Thunder challenges Gov. Rounds and the state legislators on this law that is an affront to all independent women."

Yeah. Oh, yeah. (That said, what is the Sioux take on abortion, anyhow?)

via Very Big Blog.

Related: Boycott on South Dakota tourism works, leading to the state deciding on an ad blitz to bring it there. (Okay, maybe that second half isn't quite true.)

I Mess With Texas, Part 11

It doesn't take long. While Texas has been battling more wildfires and an onslaught of wild kids visiting for South By Southwest (officially the One Redeeming Thing About Texas), it looks as though San Antonio is keeping up the great traditions of this messed up place alive:

Judson ISD considers removing controversial book from curriculum
Web Posted: 03/20/2006 11:28 PM CST

Amanda Taylor
KNES 5 Eyewitness News

Some parents are calling "The Handmaiden's Tale" by Margaret Atwood sexually graphic, and now the Judson Independent School District superintendent wants it out of the curriculum.

However, some teachers say it should stay.

"We've had some ripples over the last years on it but not to this extent," district spokesperson Sean Hoffmann said.

Eleventh-grade students at Judson High School have been reading it for the last 10 years.

"The district certainly does not want to censor our students from appropriate materials, but being a public school system, we can't turn a deaf ear to things and allow our students to be exposed to things the community may not uphold," Hoffmann said.

Atwood's book is about a lower class woman serving as a birthmother for the upper class.

However, a Judson parent noticed more than the story line. She came forward citing the book's more than 60 sexual innuendos and other graphic descriptions.

So the superintendent opened it up.

"The superintendent read several of the passages and decided because of graphic content the book should be pulled from our curriculum," Hoffmann said.

But that's not the end of the story.

A committee of English teachers, students and other parents, has voted to appeal that decision. They want this book to stay part of the advanced placement curriculum.

It'll now be in the hands of the school board, and it will meet on Thursday, March 22 at 7:30 p.m. to discuss it.

On the bright side, if they remove "The Handmaiden's Tale," then really nothing will happen, because the book is called "The Handmaid's Tale."

Clearly the newscasters in Tex-yus need a little more education themselves.

UPDATE: Book has been reinstated.

Judson senior Robbie Cimmino, who read the book in class last year, said the sexual content in the book was being taken out of context. If anything, he said, the book is a cautionary tale that teaches students to respect their bodies and respect the rights of others.

"It made me stop. It made me think. It made me reflect," he said. "If I had not had a chance to read this book, I feel I would've been cheated out of an opportunity to learn and grow."

One of the good guys

I'm happy to be well-ensconsed in blue-state heaven, New York.

But there are times when I'm just as proud of the home state of Maryland, too. Like when you get men like Jamie Raskin, who is running for State Senate.

From the Web site:

"Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You didn't place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

- Jamie Raskin, testifying Wednesday, March 1, 2006 before the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee in response to a question from Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs about whether marriage discrimination against gay people is required by "God's Law."

Snopes does have a better explanation of how the exchange went, here. Was it rehearsed? No doubt. It should also be the standard reply to any politician trying to put biblical law ahead of constitutional.

In addition to everything else, he has a good pedigree: Mom was an author and the founding president of the national writers' union. Dad worked for Kennedy (as in, President, not the sellout we currently have in Congress today).

Vote Raskin! Donate here.

Via One Good Move.

Out of the closet

Now, while I've got nothing particularly good to say about Tom Cruise (whose movies, other than "Risky Business," "A Few Good Men" and "Magnolia" basically blow), I tend not to believe the rumors that he threatened to not promote Paramount's upcoming "Mission: Impossible 3" if sister company Comedy Central re-aired South Park's Episode 912 "Trapped in the Closet." (Both CC and Paramount are owned by Viacom; thanks, Ron "Greatest American Ever" Reagan for deregulation!) Not that Cruise wouldn't make those threats, but that I can't imagine he's not contractually obligated to do some publicity.

That said, the whole furor is doing what these censorship furors always do: Raise interest in the episode. I love South Park, but most TV isn't appointment for me (I get to it when I can) and I haven't seen an episode in a long time. I missed the first airing of "Trapped." And if I really wanted to see it, I no longer could on Comedy Central. But within three clicks of a mouse, I had the episode thanks to You Tube (which essentially is like Napster was before it got sued out of existence; Lord knows how long You Tube and its like will exist, but for now, if you want it on video, no doubt it's there) and just watched it. Had it not been for Isaac Hayes quitting (hypocritical coward) and the rerun being yanked, I'd have gone on my merry way and done something else for the last 20 minutes. So, nice work, Scientologists. Multiply me by several thousand, or hundred thousand, or million, and you've just given Trey Parker and Matt Stone that much more publicity.

I therefore pass along the link to anyone who cares to see the episode. As with most things TP and MS do: Genius.

Also: Trey and Matt's reply to the episode yanking.

UPDATE: Though I'm usually loathe to put anything Fox News says up as credible, I know the gent Roger writing this column and I'll trust him instead.

He notes something that I had not been aware of: Isaac Hayes had a stroke in late January, and that he's still hospitalized. He's in no condition, says Roger, to make any kind of statements like he did, plus quitting the show.

Says Roger:

"The truth is, Hayes has a sly sense of humor and loves everything about "South Park." It’s provided him a much-needed income stream since losing the royalties to the many hits he’s written, such as “Shaft” and “Soul Man,” in the mid-1970s."

Even though he’s one of America’s most prolific hit writers, Hayes has been denied access to profits from his own material for almost 30 years.

But it’s hard to know anything since Hayes, like Katie Holmes, is constantly monitored by a Scientologist representative most of the time. Luckily, at the Blues Ball he was on his own, partying just with family and friends. He was very excited about having gotten married and about the impending birth of a new child.

Friends in Memphis tell me that Hayes did not issue any statements on his own about South Park. They are mystified.

“Isaac’s been concentrating on his recuperation for the last two and a half, three months,” a close friend told me.

Hayes did not suffer paralysis, but the mild stroke may have affected his speech and his memory. He’s been having home therapy since it happened.

That certainly begs the question of who issued the statement that Hayes was quitting "South Park" now because it mocked Scientology four months ago. If it wasn’t Hayes, then who would have done such a thing?

Roger also notes that Comedy Central is going to show "Trapped in the Closet" this Wednesday. And finally, Roger also has something to say completely unrelated to South Park: He likes Austin!

I came down to Austin for the final weekend of the annual South by Southwest festival — also known as SXSW, a play on Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest.”

I came for several reasons, not the least of which was constantly hearing from anyone who’d been here that Austin was the anomalous Texas city, full of culture and fun.

They were, of course, correct. I will now put Austin on my list of favorite “fly over” cities along with Memphis and Chicago. Texas’ capital has an amazing aesthetic and nearly defies logic. There are no Texan stereotypes here, either.

It’s as if Austin is the Texas town that Europe forgot. And a fantastic new 33-story modern skyscraper, the Frost Bank Tower, looms over the “old” Western city and gives Austin a welcome futuristic glow of promise. Very impressive.

So call this a "reason not to mess with Texas, Part 1/2."

Heffalumps R Us

Annie Proulx wasn't happy with the outcome of the Oscars.

We should have known conservative heffalump academy voters would have rather different ideas of what was stirring contemporary culture. Roughly 6,000 film industry voters, most in the Los Angeles area, many living cloistered lives behind wrought-iron gates or in deluxe rest-homes, out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city, decide which films are good. And rumour has it that Lions Gate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of Trash - excuse me - Crash a few weeks before the ballot deadline. Next year we can look to the awards for controversial themes on the punishment of adulterers with a branding iron in the shape of the letter A, runaway slaves, and the debate over free silver.

News trash

"What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I'm semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing... he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance... Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about all of us really being salesmen."
—"Broadcast News"

This is despicable.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - While just about every television genre has jumped on the lucrative product-placement bandwagon, news programs generally have been considered off-limits to preserve editorial integrity.

But with TV stations facing increased competition and pressure on advertising revenue, the barriers that shielded news programing from such deals are falling. Product placement, media and branded entertainment agencies say they are increasingly being pitched opportunities from local stations to integrate their clients' products into news programing in exchange for buying commercial time or paying integration fees.

"There are more local news stations that are incorporating brands into news in innovative, cutting-edge ways," said Aaron Gordon, president of entertainment marketing firm Set Resources Inc. "The line, which has always been black and white in terms of what's news and what's commercials, is now being blurred."

A number of local stations, including Young Broadcasting's indie KRON-TV San Francisco and Univision's KMEX-TV Los Angeles, confirmed that they have integrated advertisers into their newscasts and are actively seeking out product-integration deals. Meredith Broadcasting's Fox affiliate KPTV-TV Portland, Ore., launched a lifestyle show in January called "More Good Day Oregon" as an extension of its morning news program "Good Day Oregon." It airs weekly segments designed to serve as vehicles for brand integration.

Such other stations as CBS Corp.'s indie KCAL-TV Los Angeles and Gannett's NBC affiliates in Denver, Minneapolis, Atlanta and Cleveland are experimenting with integration into newsmagazine-type shows that they describe as entertainment rather than news.

MORNING NEWS SHOWS

"We're all trying to find ways of integrating commercial messages into content that satisfy the audience and advertisers without hurting our product," KRON president and general manager Mark Antonitis said. "When you're an independent, you've got to do what you can to survive. You bank on your credibility as a news organization every day, but you also have to be successful as a business. You have to be creative for your advertisers without compromising the credibility of your news organization."

Most stations are focusing their efforts on morning news shows, where lifestyle segments allow for more integration opportunities without sounding as many alarm bells with viewers as it might if product integration popped up in the hard-news portions of their newscasts. At present, full-fledged brand integration into news programing appears to be limited to local news, but some marketing experts suspect that the network morning news shows won't be far behind.

"We are already seeing an erosion of the 'editorial wall' in network newsrooms, particularly for morning news and newsmagazines," said Jim Johnston, partner at the law firm Davis & Gilbert, which represents both media agencies and entertainment clients.

"I think you'll find that this type of activity will continue to take place, and other forms of product integration will find their way into news divisions as well," he said. "The news organizations will continue to seek a balance between editorial independence and advertiser interests, but you will likely see a lot more boundary-pushing in the future."

Representatives for ABC's "Good Morning America," NBC's "Today" and CBS' "The Early Show," all produced through their respective networks' news divisions, say they allow no product integration of any kind. But they do feature the brand names and logos of the sponsors of their concert series on the stages where their musical acts perform. They also run billboards announcing the sponsors of their various news segments.

Just last month, "Good Morning America" broadcast segments of the show live from a Norwegian Cruise Line ship as part of a weeklong series called "Girls' Week Out." According to "GMA" spokeswoman Bridgette Maney, Norwegian Cruise Lines did not pay integration fees for the segments, hosted by correspondent Mike Barz and co-anchor Diane Sawyer, but did foot the bill for airfare, room and board to send nearly 300 women -- contest winners and their girlfriends -- on a cruise to Honduras, Jamaica and the Grand Cayman Islands. Most of the segments broadcast from the ship focused on the women who won the cruise by writing in to say why they deserved time away with their girlfriends, she said.

AUDIENCE BACKLASH

Radio-Television News Directors Association president Barbara Cochran warned that integrating advertisers into news programing could backfire, costing local stations viewers instead of having the intended effect of increasing ad sales. "You're selling the credibility of the news, and if viewers start thinking your news is for sale, then the credibility of your news is lost and your audience is lost," she said.

According to RTNDA's ethics guidelines, "news reporting and decision-making should be free of inappropriate commercial influences" and "should not show favoritism to advertisers," and "news organizations should protect the integrity of coverage against any potential conflict of interest."

Univision's KMEX has an integration partnership with health-care provider Kaiser Permanente Southern California as part of what the station calls its "Lead a healthy life, get the facts" public-service campaign. Kaiser physicians are interviewed on myriad health topics on Univision's various news programs, news footage is shot at Kaiser facilities, and Kaiser patients and support groups are featured in news segments. As part of the arrangement, Kaiser pays additional fees for the integrations, which are not disclosed as such during the news programs.

"Bringing Kaiser on board was a win-win for both of us because they get the exposure of their physicians on television and we have their experts giving us the medical view on a particular health issue and providing vital information to our audience," a Univision spokeswoman said. "Typically news isn't for sale because you need to maintain your integrity. However, you also need to be creative to find ways to include your advertisers without damaging your credibility."

She said KMEX also has involved some of its news personalities in on-air integration/promotion deals with other advertisers, including a major automaker. Last month, KRON aired an 11-day "Spa Spectacular" series in which 11 local spas were featured in the last half-hour of its five-hour morning news programs and viewers were offered the opportunity to purchase half-price gift certificates for spa services.

According to Antonitis, one of the station's news anchors announced that the spas were paying to be featured on the program during the segments.

"I want it to be absolutely clear that that's what's going on here," Antonitis said. "If it's in the newscast, it has to be clearly identified either by an anchor, an announcement or even both that these people paid to be part of this segment or are providing products in exchange for the segment."

In another KRON integration that aired this month, Tourism Australia -- the government body responsible for international and domestic tourism marketing for Australia -- paid KRON to run a weeklong series featuring stories about the country in its morning news program. In addition to an integration fee, Tourism Australia bought traditional spots in the KRON newscasts, paid all expenses for a five-member news crew to travel to Australia and sponsored trips to Australia for two winners of an e-mail contest promoted on-air.

"They certainly had input into our stories, but anytime we do anything with an advertiser that involves news, we have ultimate editorial control," Antonitis said. In this case, Tourism Australia's pay-for-play role was disclosed in the end credits.

"We bring on people all the time to talk about books, products and interesting new ideas anyway," Antonitis said of KRON's decision to integrate advertisers into its news programing. "So if we can have the added benefit of a new revenue source and give something to our viewers that they wouldn't be able to get otherwise and advertisers get their products advertised, it's a win-win-win."

In Portland, KPTV maintains that its new "More Good Day Oregon" program allows for product integration because it is a lifestyle magazine show rather than a traditional newscast.

"It's a high-energy, fast-paced, newscast-style program that has lifestyle content, not news content," KPTV news director Patrick McCreery said. "I think it's an important distinction that our news segments are not for sale, which is why we're endeavoring to create a new product where integration is possible."

Since premiering January 9, "More Good Day Oregon" already has integrated a major local shopping center for a segment on last-minute gifts for
Valentine's Day and a local spa for a two-part series featuring the spa's services and a makeover giveaway won by a viewer. In both cases, the advertisers' involvement was disclosed in the end credits.

"It's proving to be a fairly popular way to work with advertisers here in Portland," McCreery said. "I think it's going to catch on. Gone are the days of just selling spots in local shows. You have to move beyond that if you want to take it to the next level."

Indie KCAL in Los Angeles said that its "9 on the Town" nightly program, covering hot spots and entertainment in Los Angeles, accepted payments from advertisers to be featured in the program, which is expected to go off the air this month after a year-and-a-half run. A KCAL spokesman said the financial relationship is disclosed in the end credits just as it would be in "The Apprentice" or any other show doing integration deals with advertisers. Lisa Joyner, KCBS-TV and KCAL's lifestyles and entertainment features reporter, was one of the hosts of "9 on the Town."

Despite their willingness to strike integration deals with advertisers, the local stations all insisted that the exchange of airtime in their news broadcasts for additional ad revenue would not jeopardize their editorial integrity.

"What you can't do for any advertiser is put into question the integrity of your news product, and the best way to do that is to be absolutely clear about what you're doing," KRON's Antonitis said. "As someone with a journalism background, I don't have any concern about integrating products as long as it's done properly, appropriately and consistently."

As someone with a journalism background, he should be ashamed. And the FCC should be out revoking licenses, not levying fines over a flashed boob.

Television stations originally got their licenses because they agreed to service the public good (while doing their best to make a profit). Hence, news broadcasts. For years, news broadcasts generally didn't make money. And they weren't supposed to. They're just supposed to service the viewers with information about their neighborhoods and the world, maybe throw in some weather and sports. These were the rules, and for the most part, networks and affiliates played by them. Yes, they may have been the vegetables on the TV dinner plate, but they had to be there. If you didn't serve the public, you could lose your license.

Once someone decided they could make money with newscasts, the gloves came off. At that point, licenses should have been suspended. They weren't. Now, we're left wtih this. The news you see may now be sponsored, nay, generated by advertisers.

Number one: Folks, news is not meant to be profitable. Live with it. Whore out something else.
Number two: If you whore out the news, you should have your license yanked.
Number three: Some of this whoring is being done because fewer people are watching TV news. And why are they getting their news elsewhere? Whoring.
Number four: I'm getting my headlines from the Internet.
Number five: And I'm even happier I've never used the broadcast journalism degree I graduated with. What a cesspool.

I Mess With Texas, Part 10

Admittedly, South Dakota is the most f-ed up state at the moment, passing and signing legislation that they know is anti-constitutional, and passing and signing it precisely for that reason, not because there's been a groundswell of anti-choicers banging on the walls recently or anything. But because they want their states rights that means they think they have the right to tell everyone else to do. Nice, coming from a state with a population of about 52.

But, I digress. Texas remains the raison d'etre for this section, and Texas never fails to disappoint.

DeLay tops challengers despite indictment
By JOHN MORITZ
STAR-TELEGRAM AUSTIN BUREAU

U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay won renomination in the Republican primary Tuesday as voters in his conservative Houston-area district brushed aside the legal problems that last year forced the veteran lawmaker to relinquish his powerful post of U.S. House Majority leader.

In incomplete unofficial returns, DeLay was running well ahead of his three challengers with about 64 percent of the vote.

...

DeLay, R-Sugar Land, has called the indictment brought by a Democratic prosecutor politically motivated.

"My constituents get it," he told The Associated Press. "They know what a leftist abuse of power this is."

Knew that was coming.

Sixty-four percent of people in this jerkoff's district want him in office. Despite the indictment. Nice role model you're setting up, folks. Morons. In a way, I say if they want him, they should get him, but the problem is then he gets to affect all of us. Like South Dakota. Can't these people just implode, already?

In other Texas-related news (because you know the monkey in charge likes to claim he's actually from Crawford): The ball is rolling on impeachment. Actually, it's been rolling for a while now, but more people are talking about it. And once Dan Savage gets involved, anything can happen -- remember, folks, santorum.

So, without further ado:

ITMFA

The Ever Present ... Now

Michael Chabon on Clock of the Long Now:

When I told my son about the Clock of the Long Now, he listened very carefully, and we looked at the pictures on the Long Now Foundation’s website. “Will there really be people then, Dad?” he said. “Yes,” I told him without hesitation, “there will.” I don’t know if that’s true.... But in having children—in engendering them, in loving them, in teaching them to love and care about the world—parents are betting, whether they know it or not, on the Clock of the Long Now. They are betting on their children, and their children after them, and theirs beyond them, all the way down the line from now to 12,006. If you don’t believe in the Future, unreservedly and dreamingly, if you aren’t willing to bet that somebody will be there to cry when the Clock finally, ten thousand years from now, runs down, then I don’t see how you can have children. If you have children, I don’t see how you can fail to do everything in your power to ensure that you win your bet, and that they, and their grandchildren, and their grandchildren’s grandchildren, will inherit a world whose perfection can never be accomplished by creatures whose imagination for perfecting it is limitless and free. And I don’t see how anybody can force me to pay up on my bet if I turn out, in the end, to be wrong.

His wife may be certifiable, but I love this man.

Worst. Politician. Ever.

Oh, Lord, when will Congress put us out of our misery and start the fargin' impeachment proceedings already?

As if we needed another excuse, the AP now has video proof that Bush just used FEMA as a shield. (Not that Michael Brown was exactly Mr. Competent, but at least he issued a warning.) Which Bush later lied about in saying that no one could have expected the levees to break. What Bush really meant was that "no one of my limited intelligence" could have expected the levees to break. (For now at least, the video can be found at One Good Reason.)

I wanna meet someone who gave him high ratings when we first bombed Iraq, but who has since changed their mind. Because according to the polls, there's a hell of a lot of them out there. This man had an over 90% positive rating at one point. He now has a 38% all-time low. Letterman pinpointed the moment this happened, showing the videotape on his new "George W. Bush: Oh My God" segment -- when the President was caught on videotape hocking a loogie.

I'd like to hock one myself.

In other news, the Patriot Act was overwhelmingly renewed. Guess Congress isn't about to save us from anything any time soon.