Some of Fashion & Entertainment's "Tough Chicks in Luxury Packaging": Amber Heard, Jennifer Åkerman and Blake Lively; @AmberHeard, @jjakerman, @BlakeLively; Tuff Brud I Lyxförpackning

Terry Richardson: Behind the scenes with Amber Heard. http://nyti.ms/QKeiwL

Yes, Amber's smile above at 0:44 is pure perfection!


A friendly series of email flares sent up from both Park Slope and West End Avenue this morning alerted us to the exciting news:"Must-see Amber Heard photo essay in today's N.Y. Times "T" Magazine." 
("T" being their Style magazine for those of you who are uninitiated.)
Immediately, we got to work and relayed the message via our 24/7 communication network...

This blog and its network of friends around the world thank our New York City friends who wish to remain anonymous for the thoughtful head's-up, and now have a must-buy Sunday Times print edition situation for the first time in quite awhile.
No promises, but we might have some photos here later in the day, after a coffee run later this afternoon from you-know-where.

Here's the basics:

The Well Rounded Amber Heard

By Kathryn Branch

August 17, 2012, 4:00 PM

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/the-well-rounded-amber-heard/

The video of the behind-the-scenes photo shoot by Terry Richardson is at:

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/08/17/t-magazine/100000001727984/well-rounded-amber-heard.html 

The last time I saw such a beautiful woman with a cute pet in a photo was... oh, that's right, this morning.

It came when I was checking my email and saw that well-grounded fave of the blog, LA-based blogger -LA Life- singer and Wilhemina NY model Jennifer Åkerman had just written about her latest magazine interview, with Uniprice Sweden, which she did while she's back in Sweden for a few weeks on vacation, and was photographed with her journalist sister's cat.

Her post: 

http://blogg.veckorevyn.com/lalife/2012/08/19/uniprice-intervju-aven-katten-fick-vara-med/

The actual interview and photo is titled, humorously in this case, Tuff Brud i Lyxförpackning, 

i.e. Tough Chick in Luxury Packaging, and is at:

http://www.uniprice.com/se/article;jsessionid=BA27CC09043F8781B0083CF522C305B3?aid=227

This title is a reference to a very popular Swedish song by singer Lill-Babs in 1961, a song title that over the past 50 years has also gotten a life of its own as a saying or metaphor, usually as a positive. 
It helps, of course, that the word "brud" can also be used in Swedish for bride as well as babe and -wait for it- chick.

PontiacGrandPrix63 video: Lill-Babs - Tuff Brud I Lyxförpackning (1961)

Uploaded April 17, 2011. http://youtu.be/ECCIF55U-gU

What's old becomes new again in 2010 as Petter keeps it real with Lill-Babs watching from the dinner table.
You don't have to know any Swedish to see why this is both clever and funny, so watch the whole thing!  

YetAnotherStranger1 video: Petter Alexis Askergren sings "Tuff brud i lyxförpackning" on TV4 Sweden's "Så mycket bättre" (So much better) Full song! Uploaded November 14, 2010. http://youtu.be/dwWAR0-dfP8

Hon är en tuff brud i lyxförpackning. 
En tuff brud i snyggt fodral...

(She is one tough chick in luxury packaging. 
A tough chick in the attractive case...)

The best American pop culture comparison might be Ann-Marget in Kitten with a Whip, where the title of that 1964 film, co-starring John Forsyth, has been appropriated hundreds and hundreds of times for other purposes, especially as the title of an article in popular magazines of nearly every subject you can think of.

tonypatti video: Kitten With a Whip -Famous Someday -Ann-Marget and John Forsyth (1964). http://youtu.be/B9xrcZKvUUg

Full movie at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2--Z_LW8gs

Jen's popular and oh-so-catchy song from last year with her band Bella Tech

Bella Tech - Summer Song
The Los Angeles-based band that features lead vocals by Jennifer Åkerman. http://youtu.be/0Q5x7NfbhP0

Here's the video for her newest solo single, from this summer, Silent Killer...

, 
bellsoto video: "Silent Killer" - Jennifer Akerman, directed by Bell Soto, Uploaded June 2, 2012. http://youtu.be/iYtmjKodsUM


By the way, with the demise of the LA Times Magazine due to budget cuts at parent Tribune Company, one of the few places where yours truly could oftentimes find that delicious nugget of pop culture information that confirmed his intuition and sense of things in the entertainment universe while living in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. and South Florida, I now have one less dependable, albeit-celeb-heavy, source of information. 
The news about this forced me to shed a tear of sadness.

Regular readers of the blog might recall they ran that excellent piece in their April issue that I linked to here in my post of April 11, 2012 titled, After Stieg Larsson, whom? April 2012 LA Times Magazine features stories on amazing Stockholm and some prominent Swedish crime novelists -and explains why you should be reading them!

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/after-stieg-larsson-whom-april-2012-la.html

Their cover subject for their last issue, in June, was also a favorite of this blog, the delightful Blake Lively.

http://www.latimesmagazine.com/2012/06/savage-beauty.html

I really did mean to bring this up when it was first announced, because it's quite a telling example of what's going on in the American economy right now, as advertising dollars migrate to non-print locales, but...

Los Angeles Times to discontinue LA, its Sunday magazine
The magazine, which came out monthly, will print its final issue June 3.
By Alana Semuels, Los Angeles Times
May 16, 2012|
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/16/business/la-fi-times-magazine-20120516

----

@AmberHeard  http://twitter.com/AmberHeard

http://amberheardofficial.com/

@jjakerman http://twitter.com/jjakerman

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bella-Tech/209598585732036

http://twitter.com/#!/BellaTech

Listen to Jennifer here: http://soundcloud.com/jennifer-akerman

French political expert James Shields' prescient view of Hollande in charge: The Europe & France of 2012 is very different from Mitterand's of '81, less a French President can do within Europe, therefore expect incrementalism not transformational changes, though this may well disappoint France's most-devout Socialists

Sign of The Times this morning, the day after le second tour de l'élection présidentielle: Left-hand turn ahead, prepare to pay increased toll to appease the professional proletariat class and their laundry list of demands & grievances. 

But we'll always have Paris, right? 

Yes, mes amis, but some of it will be moving to London soon to wait out the coming economic  déluge.

France24english video: Debate, Part 1 of 2. President Hollande: Can "Mr. Normal" lead France in times of crisis? May 7, 2012. http://youtu.be/7MpB7IM_b1g

France24 Debate show host François Picard and his guests discuss what important decisions lies ahead for president-elect François Hollande, using clips from his acceptance speech in Tulle: what factors he may weigh in selecting a Prime Minister, what that choice might suggest about Hollande's future priorities or signals to party faithful; concerns about his economic policies, and how he will deal with Angela Merkel's Germany on the Eurozone debt crisis and why German financial institutions won't like what they hear from his govt., et al.

Guests: Steven Erlanger, Paris bureau chief of the N.Y. Times; Ulrike Koltermann, former Paris bureau chief, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA); James Shields, French political expert and Head of French Studies, Aston University http://www1.aston.ac.uk/lss/staff/shieldsjg/

Patrick Vignal, Senior correspondent, Reuters/France.


For me, the best takeaway comment was that of Jim Shields, who says, more or less, the Europe and France of 2012 is very different from the one that Socialist François Mitterand strode onto, chiefly because there is more that is beyond the reasonable human control of the Élysée Palace, therefore expect incrementalism, not the transformational changes that his oldest and youngest supporters long for.





France24english video: Debate, Part 2 of 2. President Hollande: Can "Mr. Normal" lead France in times of crisis? May 7, 2012. http://youtu.be/76ZEBgYxCVE 

Arizona's immigration law goes before U.S. Supreme Court; Myanmar's natural beauty -largely tourist-free, but for how long?; Rupert Murdoch before the Leveson Inquiry

Timescast of the New York Times for April 25, 2012: Arizona's immigration law goes before U.S. Supreme Court; Myanmar's natural beauty -largely tourist-free, but for how long?; Rupert Murdoch before the Leveson Inquiry. http://youtu.be/WKktlz4UVHc


I'll have some thoughts to share later today on Murdoch, père et fils, and the Levseon Inquiry later today, including some thoughts on an angle to the story involving former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown that, curiously, never seems to quite get mentioned in the American press, but which if it did happen here, would be the thought uppermost on everyone's minds.


It's hard not to look at those islands in Mynamar and not think of the scenery for two 007 films, The Man with the Golden Gun and Tomorrow Never Dies, since both were filmed in both Thailand and near the South China Sea.


I wonder how long it will be before Sports Illustrated shoots their annual swimsuit issue there?
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/swimsuit/home/index.htm
Once that happens, there'll be no putting the genie back in the bottle.
As we have all seen before...

Colorized clips from first episode of NBC-TV's I Dream of Jeannie, The Lady In the Bottle, September 18, 1965. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_In_The_Bottle


The first episode, in glorious Black & White



http://youtu.be/Er547IHK6Io

N.Y. Times reporter Jeff Zeleny's nonsensical comment re size of Newt Gingrich's GA-6 district is early leader for dopiest political comment of 2012; but it's only January and this is Florida, so...

Above, Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times on PBS' Washington Week in Review. January 20, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier

So, did you see "it" tonight, in my case, as I was doing some cleaning around the house?
The "it" I refer to was Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times putting his foot firmly into his mouth via a nonsensical comment on tonight's episode of PBS' Washington Week in Review, about, of all things, the size of Newt Gingrich's Georgia congressional district in the 1990's.


Zeleny stated, among other things, in a condescending tone, that it was a "small district."
WTF?
Now I realize that when you're a guest on TV, even PBS, there's great pressure to sound both articulate and clever, and NOT be the anchor that drags the whole show down but...


Congrats to Zeleny, as his comment, three weeks into a new year, is already the leading candidate for the dopiest political comment of the year.
Not that there won't be lots of candidates here in Florida and coast-to-coast nationally who will battle him for the title, which went unrewarded last year due to an oversight of mine -a mistakenly deleted email.


Gingrich's suburban Atlanta CD of the 1990's was the same constituent size as everyone else's in the GA delegation, per the law and per the Georgia legislature redistricting.
But it was NOT the district he'd first been elected to, and he did NOT even benefit from being the House Speaker, since the district he'd formerly represented was carved-out by the Georgia legislature almost two years BEFORE the House Republicans retook the House after more than forty years in the political wilderness, when Gingrich was rewarded for his efforts by being voted Speaker after having previously been the House Minority Whip.


Or, to quote Wikipedia as it currently exists, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich

As a result of the 1990 United States Census, Georgia picked up an additional seat for the 1992 U.S. House elections. However, the Democratic-controlled Georgia General Assembly eliminated the district that Gingrich represented, splitting its territory among three neighboring districts. Much of the southern portion of Gingrich's district, including his home in Carrollton, was drawn into the Columbus-based 3rd District, represented by five-term Democrat Richard Ray. At the same time, the Assembly created a new, heavily Republican 6th District in Fulton and Cobb counties in the wealthy northern suburbs of Atlanta—an area that Gingrich had never represented. However, Gingrich sold his home in Carrollton and moved to Marietta in the new 6th...

(Of course, I already knew this before I double-checked my facts since I knew someone
very sharp from Richard Ray's staff, a Legislative Assistant named Lee Culpepper, who, like me, was very involved with Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) activities on the Hill when Oklahoma congressman Dave McCurdy was running things. 
Last I heard, Lee was a lobbyist for the National Restaurant Association, and one of the top lobbyists in Washington. Congressman Ray's staff and office, friendly and whip-smart, was also one of those popular Capitol Hill offices that featured a variation of the usual state marketing device, one that never got old -free food. 
Ray's office was never lacking for courtesy packs of peanuts, courtesy of Georgia peanut farmers and the Georgia Peanut Commission, and as a frequent peanut eater, I can tell you without exception, they were damn good peanuts, too!
Johnny Isakson, currently Georgia's junior U.S. Senator, was elected in a special election to succeed Newt as GA-6's rep after he'd resigned from Congress in 1999.)


That Zeleny would somehow imagine that the physical size of a congressional district is a measure of or has a direct correlation to... well, what exactly?
He didn't make any sense before or after his comment, so was that just a brain freeze on his
part, and his mouth kept going, or did he have some genius comment he'd been sitting on all week to drop on us?


If Zeleny is right about whatever this idea of his is that he never quite articulated, than by his own logic, the Congressional representatives of large urban cities that scrunch and compact Minorities together -for the sole purpose of making it next-to-impossible for anyone else to win an election, short of the incumbents's death or their imprisonment- is what exactly, suspect?


Manhattan, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Atlanta, Miami...
I do so much hope that Zeleny will enlighten us as to his great idea, once he can spit it out intelligently.


Yes, the Democrats running the House of Representatives did try to pour millions into the district in order to defeat Gingrich, after all, he more than any other single individual is directly responsible for ethically-challenged Jim Wright going from Speaker of the House of Representatives to a former member of the House to, ultimately, someone charged with a crime. http://todlindberg.net/?p=20
Gingrich did have a close election or two, but he never lost once he got elected.
Fact.


In case you'd forgotten whom I was talking about...



, 
Bernard Goldberg: NYT Reporter's 'Enchanted' Question of Obama 'Fits Our Metrosexual Times'
http://youtu.be/HpN8dmRUNT8


http://hotair.com/archives/2009/04/29/nyt-reporter-to-obama-what-is-it-about-the-office-thats-enchanted-you/

Meanwhile, it's great that as ethical misconduct and crony capitalism among Congress continues to be a troubling issue for voters of either party, Zeleny and his colleagues on the WWR panel completely ignored the spectacle of President Obama and wannabe-felon Charles Rangel together at a NYC fundraiser Thursday night.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/obama-fundraises-once-censured-rangel/325656

Yes, the same powerful person who helped craft the tax laws of this country is the same person who forgot for years that he owned multiple homes, forgot to pay taxes, and who forgot...
But you know what Rangell never forgot to play?
The race card.


-----
http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/


http://hotair.com/

"The Obamas": You've heard the anecdotes, now meet the author Saturday & Sunday on C-SPAN2's Book TV: NY Times reporter Jodi Kantor

Jodi Kantor, The Obamas 
Saturday at 11 p.m.; Sunday at 9:45 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Eastern

        

Jodi Kantor, Washington correspondent for the New York Times, examines the relationship between President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. The author reports on the changes to the couple's relationship as they entered the White House and their efforts to raise their children and balance their personal life against the requirements of their public life. Jodi Kantor discusses her book with David Brooks, columnist for the New York Times at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC.

It's interesting to imagine whether or not someone in the audience will say something about the criticism of Kantor -from a pro-Michelle Obama p.o.v.- like how can she possibly know what was in Mrs. Obama's mind or what she may've said to Carla Bruni about the fish-bowl existence in The White House, when everyone knows, most especially David Brooks, her colleague, that Times columnist Maureen Dowd -a subject of past blog posts here- has made a speciality over the years of putting dozens and dozens of well-known Washington pols or power brokers on the psychiatrist couch in her columns, and tried to explain their actions without ever speaking to them, which many greatly resent.


She especially milked it in trying to draw distinctions or explain away the policy and emotional differences between Bush 41 and Bush 43, as well as the differences between their respective supporters and friends, like Brent Scowcroft's constant criticism of Bush 43's foreign policy.
Just saying... BOLO! 

Pow! Former Dem. congressman Artur Davis of Alabama slices-and-dices, marinates and sautés the N.Y. Times' Andy Rosenthal in the National Review Online. Delicious!

Pow! Former Dem. congressman Artur Davis of Alabama slices-and-dices, marinates and sautés the N.Y. Times' Andy Rosenthal in the National Review Online. Delicious!

But first, the necessary predicate, which I sent some of you the day it appeared in The Post:


The Washington Post
The Fix blog
Former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis talks party-switching
Posted by Aaron Blake at 03:18 PM ET, 12/30/2011

Former Democratic congressman Artur Davis, who has been a thorn in the side of Democrats in the aftermath of his loss in the 2010 Alabama gubernatorial primary, is a man without a political party.

In an interview with The Fix, Davis openly speculated about running for office as an independent or even a Republican. In both cases, he suggested his decision not to make the switch has as much to do with the difficulties involved as any desire he has to remain a Democrat.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/former-democratic-rep-artur-davis-talks-party-switching/2011/12/30/gIQAmOKyQP_blog.html


Reader comments at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/former-democratic-rep-artur-davis-talks-party-switching/2011/12/30/gIQAmOKyQP_blog.html


NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE
Rosenthal’s Amnesia 
The Times columnist forgets how protesters treated LBJ, Nixon, Carter, Bush, . . .
By Artur Davis
January 9, 2012 4:00 A.M.

Lyndon Johnson was loathed enough that, in his final year in office, he dared not make a public appearance other than at a military base; it was commonplace for chanting crowds to gather and spray verbal obscenities at LBJ’s White House. Jimmy Carter’s presidency was a routine subject of cultural derision, some of it viciously aimed at his pre-teen daughter and his brother. Bill Clinton spawned so much hate that at least some of his adversaries spread strange rumors that he was connected to murder; then there was this thing called impeachment. George W. Bush inflamed some of his enemies enough that they carried signs crudely depicting him as a war criminal or a Hitler clone.

I mention all these instances of ugliness directed at presidents because they are apparently unknown to Andrew Rosenthal, a New York Times columnist, who caused a stir last week by implying that strident opposition to Barack Obama is racially motivated, and that it’s all part of a racist tide building in advance of the November elections.

Read the rest of the essay at:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/287536/rosenthal-s-amnesia-artur-davis 


In case you forgot who ran that race-based ad campaign against Bobby Jindal in 2003 that's mentioned in the article above, it was Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.


POLITICO
Artur Davis: From Dem star to exile
By: Alex Isenstadt
December 1, 2011 11:37 PM EST

The future once seemed limitless for Artur Davis.

Not so long ago, he was viewed as one of the Democratic Party’s rising stars, routinely evoking comparisons to Barack Obama. A smart, ambitious Harvard Law School graduate like Obama, Davis appeared to be on a trajectory to make history as Alabama’s first black governor. Some saw the youthful congressman as a future attorney general.

Today, all that is gone.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/69578.html


Reader comments at:
http://dyn.politico.com/members/forums/thread.cfm?catid=1&subcatid=1&threadid=6210856


Anyone who's well-read, with a lick of common sense and possessed of an open mind, and who has spent any serious amount of time living and working in the Washington, D.C. area, knows almost from osmosis that nobody-but-nobody is EVER more popular with the ranks of the Beltway's permanent Democratic-leaning Mainstream Media than a Republican former insider or power-broker who says positive things about the Democratic Party's policies, or, who attacks another prominent Republican, the better-known the better.


This explains the recent phenomena the past three months of appearances on U.S. network TV and the cablenets by former GOP House members, staffers and party officials from the 1990's, many of whom had completely fallen off the MSM's radar, so long as they have something negative to say about Newt Gingrich, even if they owe their own rise from complete obscurity to prominence to Newt.
(That is, if you believe that nobody from Romney's PAC was involved in any way with coordinating this shopping of these anti-Newt/pro-Republican establishment types to make it easier for the MSM to find them.)


Conversely, nobody is ever treated more like a leper by the MSM than a Democrat who decides -whether out of an overabundance of backbone, bluster, spite or some other reason- to pop-open the hood of the post-Clinton Democratic Party and take a hard look at the role of their pals in the race-identity politics movement and SEIU by performing a LIVE autopsy.
Nobody wants to see under the hood and see the meat being made.

Fox News video: Daily Caller reporter Michelle Fields discusses proposed voter ID laws and former AL congressman Artur Davis says via videotape that he believes voter fraud is more present in the absentee ballot process than it is at the actual voting booth, and relates the experience in Alabama. 

http://youtu.be/etSdS1gbQaA

Henry Blodgett's insightful take on the U.S. economy, unemployment and job creation: Sorry, high-tech isn't labor-intensive; the Apple example

The Blaze video: Amy Holmes Interviews Henry Blodget from Business Insider, October 13, 2011. http://youtu.be/N_l-gBTW1To

Below is an interesting and sobering take on the U.S. unemployment situation that was written a few days ago by Henry Blodgett, CEO and Editor-In Chief of Business Insider, before the contentious debate began in earnest on Friday about the validity of the official numbers being released, esp. about the "real" number of Americans unemployed, given how many Americans have now used up their 99 weeks of unemployment benefits.

They no longer count in the official govt. statistics, just like people who have given up looking for work.

More below the article.

-----

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-new-data-center-north-carolina-created-50-jobs-2011-11

-----

For years while I lived in the Washington, D.C. area -roughly 1988-2003- Henry Blodgett's alternately insightful, funny and tart-tongued essays, commentary and darts on the economic scene and the ups and downs of various U.S. businesses and the people who ran them, as well as his take on the regulators and Capitol Hill legislators who pretended to know what was going on -mostly written for Slate- was an almost daily source of amusement and email back-and-forth between myself and many of my more professionally financially-focused friends and former colleagues, some of whom wrote for well-known national media outlets.

Blodgett is CEO and Editor-In Chief of Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/author/henry-blodget

Here's an example of one email to someone in Washington, D.C. from just over three years ago, with the response to it first; names changed to protect the innocent and guilty.

Re: FYI: re Henry Blodgett on buying NYT Digital; Hillary as Cordell Hull?

Monday, November 24, 2008 2:11 AM

Love this e-mail! The Hillary analysis was dead on.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

From: (me)

Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:55:44 -0800 (PST)

Subject: FYI: re Henry Blodgett on buying NYT Digital; Hillary as Cordell Hull?

Dear X:

Hola amigo!

Meant to send this interesting post below to ya on Friday.

Hope all is well with you and your real family -and the extended Timesian family in DC that I came to know- this coming Turkey Day.

You can't begin to know how much I miss being around the action!!!

You would not believe the number of reporters, print and TV, down here who wouldn't recognize a story if their lives depended on it. Really.

The banal quality and quantity of news reporting down here is SO much worse than I can adequately describe here, or ever remembered witnessing when I'd come down here from D.C. over the holidays or for Orioles spring training.

(Have you heard if Tom F. is renewing his O's season tickets???)

Suffice to say that in an area that has a million stories cooking, too many reporters in South Florida have a pronounced lack of curiosity and resourcefulness, and seem to think they are all on stand-by for Access Hollywood, ie, are literally led by hand to stories by publicists and corporate cousins and their flacks.

As you might recall me having previously mentioned, I subscribe to the Silicon Alley Insider via email, and when I saw the photo of Jane and Arthur, Jr. in Henry Blodgett's post below, it made me laugh uncontrollably when I first saw it, largely because -what are the odds- I'd just been reading something about the British monarchy and -wait for it- Lady Jane. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Jane_Grey

She, too, thought that she was in charge, but when push came to shove with the royal family, "Off with her head!"

(And they meant it!)

As your friend, I have to advise you that in the event she comes down to D.C. anytime soon, do NOT stand next to her, he said only semi-jokingly!

No doubt over the next few months, IF she walks the plank, we'll be reading revisionist essays from many quarters in the punditocracy saying that Grey Lady Jane wasn't really ever responsible for any of the bad decisions made by the Times, it was others.

Sadly and rather predictably, I suspect that'll esp. be the case with female writers, who will posit some heretofore unknown convenient alibi that this particular corporate suit, is, well, different than all the other business suits that have been recently tarred-and-feathered metaphorically for bad business performance and poor decisions that helped lead to that dead end.

I especially think that'll be the case for those female columnists outside the Times' outer defense perimeter, since, well, seriously, how many times can they pretend that they really care where the Obama girls go to school?

Like you didn't guess Sidwell Friends about 30 seconds after it was official he'd won just like I did?

Please!

Very disappointed to see recently that the Times sports magazine PLAY went buh-bye for good.

I could never tell when it was going to come out, which is frustrating and perhaps part of the bigger non ad-related problem, due to lack of topicality, but there was always something interesting in it, the same way there always was with the late great

Inside Sports magazine in the 1980's, which presaged so many of the past 25 years of sports writing, good and bad, though I prefer to recall the good.

That's where I first heard of John "Junior" Feinstein...

When I lived in Evanston, I lived next door to their editorial office my first year there. So, tell me again why I was so stupid that I never thought to go next door and talk my way into some sort of assignment to prove my worth, such as it was at the time?

Easily one of my worst decisions ever!

Monday's LA Times has an interesting angle on the possible Hillary move to Foggy Bottom, and I've been thinking about it more than most, since it's actually quite original.

New York Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-hillary24-2008nov24,0,1141924.story

A TIME OF TRANSITION

Clinton's potential pitfalls seen in FDR's secretary of State

Like Cordell Hull, she could find herself marginalized because she hasn't been close to the president she would serve. Her future ambitions could also complicate her job.

By Paul Richter

November 24, 2008

Reporting from Washington — Cordell Hull was a veteran lawmaker with a worldwide reputation when Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him secretary of State in 1933, in part to win needed support from Hull's army of Democratic admirers.

But the dignified Tennessean was never close to FDR. As time passed, he was "muscled out by others in the administration," said Michael Hunt, a diplomatic historian at the University of North Carolina.

Barack Obama's election as president has drawn other comparisons with Roosevelt's, especially for the economic crisis he inherits. But the example of Hull, a marginal figure despite the fact that he served into the 1940s and later won the Nobel Peace Prize, may point to potential pitfalls for Hillary Rodham Clinton if she takes the top diplomatic post, as seems increasingly likely.

Clinton would come to the role with global star power, a first-name relationship with world leaders, and a long familiarity with foreign policy.

But her relationship with the president and the new administration -- so key to success in the job -- is coarsely mixed. And her future ambitions could affect her pursuit of the administration's goals.

Hmm-m...

Now consider this, from a recent NYT quiz

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/crosswords/trivia/quiz335.html?scp=1&sq=%22Cordell%20Hull%22&st=cse

NOODLE NUDGER #335 -- Steel Trap

Question #3 was:

He headed U.S. Steel before he was tapped by Franklin D. Roosevelt to run the Lend-Lease Program. Name this executive who went on to succeed Cordell Hull as the Secretary of State in 1944.

You said John W. Aiken. The correct answer is Edward Stettinius.

As Secretary of State, Stettinius helped establish the United Nations, and represented the U.S. at that institution from January to June 1946.

If Hillaryland goes to Foggy Bottom, I think she won't last past the first term.

Consider the following two pieces from NYT 'Christmas Past' as part of my reasoning.

THE MAN WHO SITS AT ROOSEVELT'S RIGHT; Cordell Hull Has Long Been a Student of International Economics

By BERTRAM D. HULEN,

Sunday Magazine

April 9, 1933

WASHINGTON

A student of economics, Cordell Hull comes to the office of Secretary of State at a time when, in his own words, "the world is in a state of bitter economic war" and when negotiations in the interests of world peace must, for some time to come, be based on economic questions...

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DEWEY'S STRENGTH SHOWN IN SURVEY;

He Would Give Roosevelt or Hull a Close Race Now, Gallup Study Finds

THIRD 'TRIAL HEAT' HELD

It Pictures Possible Result if Election Were Conducted at This Time

Sunday May 12, 1940

Thomas E.. Dewey would run an extremely close race for the Presidency against either Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, or President Roosevelt, if the contest were staged now, a survey just completed by the American Institute of Public Opinion indicates, according to Dr. George Gallup, its director...

I forgot, while Hull was the father of the inheritance tax and the modern federal income tax, what exactly was Hillary's track record and expertise with economics in the Senate and the presidential race with Obama? Exactly.

Her numbers didn't add up!

If -as Tom always says in his columns and books - economics is more important than ever to U.S. foreign policy, isn't that likely to make Hillary even less important in an Obama-dominant administration?

In a word, yes.

Adios!

____

Silicon Alley Insider

Reducing Our Offer For The New York Times (NYT)

Henry Blodget

November 20, 2008 12:52 PM

As you recall, back in July, we happily made an offer for the digital operations of the New York Times Company (NYT).

We offered a massive price--$1 billion--and proposed an innovative deal structure that would avoid the need for annoying shareholder approvals, jillion-dollar legal fees, egregious tax hits, etc. (In short, the NYT would acquire us, and then spin us and NYT Digital out--see details below). We explained how we would run the standalone NYT Digital and how the proposed transaction would benefit New York Times shareholders, who have since been obliterated.

Well, we are pleased to say that, despite the global market carnage, our offer remains in effect! Alas, in light of the impending depression and recent developments at the New York Times Company, we must mark our offer to market.

http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/11/reducing-our-offer-for-the-new-york-times-nyt

Obviously, in retrospect, I wasn't right about everything three years ago.

Hillary Clinton has outperformed all of Obama's economic team!

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Another helpful article to me on Janet Robinson's handling of the New York Times and their financial condition at the time I wrote the email above was this great piece in the New York Observer, which I've been faithfully reading for 22 years:

The New York Times Company Severely Cuts Dividend, Pot of Wealth for Sulzbergers; Analyst: ‘It Was Inevitable’

By John Koblin 11/20/08 9:50pm

http://www.observer.com/2008/media/new-york-times-company-severely-cuts-dividend-pot-wealth-sulzbergers-analyst-it-was-inevi

http://twitter.com/hblodget

http://www.businessinsider.com/

http://www.theblaze.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/BlazeChannel1

Spot-on! Michael Kinsley re-thinks his notions of the relationship b/w journalists and sources; LA Times: "Journalism and the art of betrayal"

University of California Television video: Conversations with History: Michael Kinsley

http://youtu.be/Fg-9Oa2FVHA

Saw this fascinating column in the LA Times this afternoon while making my way to their online Entertainment page to look at some film reviews, and knew I had to share it with you all ASAP, since it concerns the thoughts of someone I've long liked and admired even when I disagreed with him on an issue, Michael Kinsley.

Los Angeles Times

Op-Ed

Journalism and the art of betrayal

The explanations newspapers give for why anonymity was granted can be hilarious. But they tend to prove what was famously asserted by New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm: Journalism is about betrayal.

By Michael Kinsley

November 4, 2011, 8:34 a.m.

In 1989, New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm published her famous essay, "The Journalist and the Murderer," with its notoriously overheated opening sentence: "Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kinsley-column-anonymous-sources-20111104,0,1960132.column

I used to talk to media personality Michael Kinsley fairly frequently back in the days when he was one of the co-hosts for CNN's Crossfire, and he'd be over at the Army-Navy Club office bldg. on Eye Street where the New York Times' DC bureau was located -usually waiting for his close friend, Maureen Dowd, to come down from her office after 5:30 or so.

The Army-Navy Building was a place where I spent LOTS of time the last ten years I was in D.C, as I mentioned here previously back on April 6th, 2011, in a post I titled, Memories of D.C. bureau of N.Y. Times; Cool stuff from NYT Graphics: Key states for Obama in 2012; 2010 Census interactive map

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/memories-of-dc-bureau-of-ny-times-cool.html

People were often split on their opinions about Michael depending upon their politics, ideology or subject, of course, but in my many experiences, I found him to be one of THE friendliest media personalities out of many I ever met or knew in Washington, with a good sense of humor.

On his TV show, given their confrontational format, that humor often came across as sarcastic I suppose, but in person, he was was often amusing and engaging in ways that were truly remarkable.

And he's got that amazing memory for details, so...

Somewhere in storage, up in the D.C. area, I think i still have a few great photos of the two of them posing in front of the bldg. lobby's Christmas tree and decorations, which were always one of the nicest in all of downtown and K Street, the same way that the NY Times' March Madness basketball pool was one of the best and most lucrative to get in on, since you had Times employees not just from the DC bureau participating, but their employees from all over the world (and their spouses) also putting their money where their mouth and brackets (or heart) was.

(To this day, I still find it amusing that so many people who would say so many vituperative or sarcastic things about her at the time at social events I attended in the DC area had no idea how truly sweet and concerned with people's feelings she could be, even when she didn't have to be.
Also, of course, famously, most people who knocked her had no idea how petite Maureen is. 
In a winter parka with a lined hood, walking by in a crowd, she'd look like a kid counting their days until she could leave Junior High.)

I still think it's pretty amazing that in the year 2011, a guy who is as clearly smart and curious as Michael about both people and ideas and trends, and who has his ability to draw people out in interesting ways, doesn't have a national TV show now.

IF I was a media mogul... I'd rectify that.

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Bill Geist interviews Maureen Dowd on CBS News' "Sunday Morning"

http://youtu.be/ldGQ2Qf2Uz4

http://conversations.berkeley.edu/

http://www.youtube.com/user/UCtelevision

MSM 'til the day they die: Morning after Casey Anthony murder acquittal, NY Times gives column one to illegal aliens from Mexico -who AREN'T here!

Above, Wednesday morning's New York Times was a picture of a newspaper that couldn't help itself from engaging in the worst (dumbest) sort of faux high-minded editorial judgment.

Where we set our scene: the Panera Bread location in Hallandale Beach, south of The Duo condo towers, right next to the Diplomat Country Club.

(Yes, as in the great Diplomat LAC battle of last year, which we won.)

July 6, 2011 photos by South Beach Hoosier.

Mainstream Media 'til the day they die...

So am I the only person in the country that noticed that the morning after the Casey Anthony murder acquittal, the N.Y. Times gives column one over to a story about illegal aliens from Mexico -who AREN'T even HERE?

It's like the Times has a Black fraternity insignia burned into their shoulders like... -well, you know who you are out there- and can't see that their loyalty to the group over the larger society as a whole must have some logical limits.

But no...

Mainstream Media 'til the day they die...

Let this be a self-evident lesson to those of you who have scoffed in the past when well-known conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and others have tweaked the MSM's patronizing and self-absorbed missing-the-trees-for-the-forest/liberal nature by saying what the prospective headlines might be in the N.Y. Times following various catastrophes.

Something along the lines of, well, say,

"Species-killer asteroid crashes into North Atlantic creating deadly tsunamis; poor and minorities will be especially hard-hit say experts."

This is something that American conservatives have been saying with various variations since William Buckley's "Firing Line" TV show was a staple of PBS and one of the very few overtly conservative outlets in American media.

The N.Y. Times article in column one that I have referenced above has one title in print and another one online.

The print version that you see for yourself above reads:

Better Lives for Mexicans Cut Allure of Going North

Shifts in Jobs and Education Are Cited in Decline of Illegal Traffic to U.S.

Online, it's...

Changes in Mexico Slow Illegal Immigration to U.S.

By Damien Cave

July 6, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/06/world/americas/immigration.html

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In case you were wondering, yes, I AM going to be highlighting the Miami Herald's perfectly awful coverage of the Casey Anthony trial in Orlando and how poorly-served South Florida was served by the largest newspaper in the country's fourth largest state.

In particular, the Herald's very curious (questionable) choices of where to run the stories they deigned to run -when they ran any- and almost always without any photos of any kind.

Given the abysmal daily coverage thru the forty-something day trial, you'd almost think that

a.) Miami wasn't in the same state as Orlando, and that,

b.) the Herald's management just wished the Casey Anthony story would go away.

Hmm-m...

Yes, just more of what I have been complaining about in this space for years with regard to the self-evident and dramatic decline of Herald management and reporting in far-too-many areas.

That essay of mine will be here before you know it, and as I always remind you here, nothing quite says neglect like evidence, especially photographic proof of that neglect.

Like cat-nip for Palin-haters: Washington Post & New York Times ask for readers' help in analyzing Palin emails as Alaska governor, but here in Hallandale Beach, Mayor Joy Cooper's email about city issues are off-limits to residents, taxpayers and small business owners

http://bcove.me/jt9yvxp0

A version of this blog post below was sent out as an email on Thursday to the Usual Trusted Sources in the Sunshine State and from Coast-to-Coast.

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Up in the Northeast corridor, the Washington Post and the New York Times among other MSM -along with ProPublica- are sounding the dinner bell for Sarah Palin-haters by asking their readers for help in analyzing Palin's emails as governor of Alaska, a place that 99.99% of them have never been, which you'd think would naturally make a difference in analyzing information and giving others some proper context.

(One of my maternal uncles, now living back in Texas, was a teacher in Nome in the '70's.)

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New York Times

Caucus blog

Help Us Investigate the Sarah Palin E-Mail Records

By Derek WillisJune 9, 2011, 1:36 PM-

On Friday, the State of Alaska will release more than 24,000 of Sarah Palin’s e-mails covering much of her tenure as governor of Alaska. Times reporters will be in Juneau, the state capital, to begin the process of reviewing the e-mails, which we will be posting on nytimes.com starting on Friday afternoon E.D.T.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/help-us-investigate-the-sarah-palin-e-mail-records/

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Washington Post

Fast Fix blog

Posted at 10:56 AM ET, 06/09/2011

Help analyze the Palin e-mails

By Ryan Kellett

Over 24,000 e-mail messages to and from former Alaska governor Sarah Palin during her tenure as Alaska's governor will be released Friday. That's a lot of e-mail for us to review so we're looking for some help from Fix readers to analyze, contextualize, and research those e-mails right alongside Post reporters over the days following the release.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/help-analyze-the-palin-emails/2011/06/08/AGZAaHNH_blog.html

Archive of Sarah Palin emails: http://documents.latimes.com/sarah-palin-emails/

On the chance that you haven't been following things this weekend, above, the Palin email fishing expedition has largely backfired and The Politico is even saying so publicly.

Meanwhile, closer to home, in case you forgot, thanks to Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) head Nicki Grossman's sister, Broward Circuit Judge Patti Henning, Hallandale Beach residents STILL can't see the govt.-related emails to and from Mayor Joy Cooper's AOL email account that she has intentionally used for YEARS to shield them from public view, despite the fact that it was known years ago that all government-related emails are supposed to go thru the city's email system.

As South Florida Sun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo accurately noted two years ago, when he was the only journalist in all of South Florida asking reasonable questions about what on the face of it seemed like an open-and-shut case involving the clear provisions of the Florida Constitution and the Sunshine Laws, HB taxpayers even got the privilege of paying for the mayor's mendacious lawsuit, to boot, which makes a mockery of the spirit and letter of the law.

That Oct. 29, 2009 story titled, Why are taxpayers footing Mayor Joy Cooper's lawsuit bill?, included these two gems of clarity:

If the Feb. 17 e-mail sent from Mayor Joy Cooper's personal America Online account was private and not subject to the state's public records law, as Cooper and the city maintain, then why did the city hire an outside law firm at $185 an hour to initiate a lawsuit?
If you accept the premise that her e-mail, which had the subject line "Mayor Cooper's Update," was not connected with city business, shouldn't Cooper have hired her own
attorney to go to court to clarify the issue?

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2009/10/mayo_why_are_taxpayers_footing.html

Mayor Cooper didn't (and still doesn't) care about appearances, which is why, then-as-now, she does what she does and dares someone to stop her, which has been her standard M.O. the entire seven-plus years I've lived here, all of which has been with her as mayor.

My friend Michael Butler, creator of the fact and financial-based website Change Hallandale, http://www.changehallandale.com/, stood-up to challenge her efforts and all he got for his concern for the larger community was hassled -and a legal bill that HE had to pay for.

Here's a partial list of who foolishly ignored what Michael did to hold public officials accountable and force them to do the right thing: The Miami Herald, Channel 4 News, Channel 6 News, Channel 7 News and Channel 10 News, The Daily Business Review, et al... You know, the thing they always say everyone needs to do?

(Cooper's now doing the same thing with the Golden Isles overlay proposal that will clearly violate homeowners rights as spelled out in their deeds. She just doesn't care. She wants everyone to do what SHE wants. Period.)

Now that she is the elected head of the Florida League of Cities, if you want me to believe that all the email she receives from her out-of-town colleagues or special interest groups in Tallahassee urging her to pass resolutions of support for one thing or another at HB City Hall, supporting League (or parochial pet projects) as a template for others to emulate, is the official one that ends @hallandalebeachfl.gov, you are going to have a very, very difficult time convincing me, because I'm sure she's still using that AOL account for such purposes so we will never know.

Why would Joy Cooper change her spots NOW?

My favorite response about this biased effort regarding Sarah Palin came from someone who wanted to know why the MSM didn't ask their readers to do this for the minutiae of Obamacare when it would've mattered, since it was clear that many congressmen were going to vote for it without ever reading it, which I'm sure includes Kendrick Meek, whom nobody misses and who has largely disappeared from the scene.

I'll bet he still hasn't read it.

Not that South Florida's lapdog news media ever asked him, on-camera.
That's the sort of journalism usually practiced in South Florida now -strangely incurious and content to let questions go unasked.