I keep meaning to spotlight Keith Olbermann’s FOK News Channel blog, and high-volume newsiness keeps interfering. (Despite what a lazy browser might infer from the blog logo, FOK stands for ‘Friends of Keith’.) He casts a cold eye upon the shenanigans of a fellow media performer:
All the pre-breakup rumblings between Glenn “Lonesome Rhodes” Beck and Fox News indicated that Beck had some kind of dream of an All-Beck TV Enterprise. The model was a hybrid of the original Howard Stern radio premise (gone, but not forgotten: the additional channel devoted to covering only news about Howard – the reporters even had matching blazers and did Howard Newscasts) and the Oprah Winfrey premise, mixed in with a little megalomania….
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[T]he wording of Beck’s television suicide note leaves plenty of room for some sort of daily television presence… But clearly he is not doing what I am doing – moving myself, my show, and my very loyal base (An Aside: Good Day to You All!) from one network to another. This can be perilous enough, but ultimately all I am asking about 2/3 of the past crowd to do is learn a new number on their remotes and DVR’s.
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That by itself might be a daunting task for loyal followers of Beck on television. But to ask them now to pay an additional premium? Beck has come to be a kind of touchstone for the Tea Party crowd and this is the wrong time to ask the Tea Party — or as I have begun to enjoy calling them — “The I’m Not Going To Pay A Lot For That Muffler Party” — to pony up some extra green. They expect something for nothing, or at least something for nothing more, not the same thing with an additional price tag.
And while we’re on the subject of pandering, Jim Newell at Gawker reports that, perhaps to reclaim some attention from the tantruming Teabaggers in the House, a significant quorum of senators are demanding another crackdown on dirty pictures:
Forty-two United States Senators have signed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding more prosecutions over adult pornography via the “vigorous” enforcement of federal obscenity laws. The Obama administration has not filed any new adult obscenity cases, because it has plenty of other actual work to do than to enforce dated, pandering laws about videos of adults having dirty sex…
I guess the Reagan centennial has aroused the puritan urge for another Meese Report. You whippersnappers get off my lawn won’t remember, but the Attorney General’s 1986 attempts to convince normal people that pr0n was more dangerous to America’s survival than mutually assured thermonuclear destruction and the Japanese economic juggernaut combined were considered a high-water mark for the Prurience Police until Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress gave them the chance to read words like “penis” into the Congressional Record. Gawker commentor Aiyiyiyi posts the perfect rebuttal to the newest cries for a solution to this non-problem:
Why bother with Washington bureaucracy? These anti-obscenity Senators should use the power of the internet to take their message directly to the people.
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May I suggest Chatroulette?
Yutsano
They do realize the state with the highest rate of pr0n consumption is Utah, amirite?
Redshift
Heh. My favorite thing about the Meese Commission was that, if I remember correctly, they assembled a group that was in no way unbiased, but was determined to find that pr0n was harmful, and after months of work, the best they managed to come up with was that violent pr0n might make people more prone to violence. Pretty weak tea, compared to what they were looking for.
Kinda makes me nostalgic for the days when conservatives, if they couldn’t find any evidence for their predetermined conclusion, just let the subject drop for a while, rather than declaring they were right anyway or just making up “evidence”…
Villago Delenda Est
The economy is on the skids, we’re getting involved in a third war, and there are 42 senators with their panties in a bunch over porn?
The stupid. It burns.
Suffern ACE
Hmmm. Once the Supreme’s ruled that animal killing films were protected, I thought we’d never have these hearings again.
Davis X. Machina
Worth getting out of bed this morning, and teaching all day, and talking to used car dealers at lunch, and plea-bargaining with parents this evening, and stepping in cat puke — twice — just to read this.
It’s time to go to bed.
Martin
@Yutsano: You are correct, according to my friend that works at one of the largest porn hosting outfits. Utah consumes the most per capita. I think NY consumed the least, but don’t hold me to that.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Anne Laurie, I may have to do my best never to say anything nasty about you again. I got one of those air filtration things a couple of weeks ago. I think Eddie has stopped overgrooming, and at least some of that fur is starting to grow back. It’s too soon to be sure, but maybe. He has definitely been pretty chipper lately, and jumping up to places where I haven’t seen him in a while.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Martin: Well, I’m sure that the fact that watching people on the street in New York is all but watching p0rn keeps their consumption down. Amirite?
Yutsano
@Martin:
Your instacool rating just jumped by a thousand points.
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Happier healthier kitteh is definitely good news. And I’m glad you didn’t give up on him.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Yutsano: It’s almost to the point where I’m finding his pestering and whining annoying again, rather than just being happy to hear it.
Yutsano
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): I get the feeling “almost” may remain your default position for quite some time. I’m about to kill mine if she doesn’t get over her obsession with my mouse.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Yutsano: No one cares about the mouse. At least, nt the computer mouse. The mouse shaped laser pointer is a different story. No, around here, the boys just like to try to capture the cursor as it moves around the screen.
Amir_Khalid
I saw the post headline and immediately thought of Gollum muttering to himself. For some reason, that mental image seems apt for the topic.
Yutsano
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Pretty much for Lexie anything not nailed down is a cat toy. If she can reach it. And she’s a Maine coon, though really tiny. I think the only place she hasn’t tried to get to is the top of the fridge. And that’s because it’s already got stuff up there.
Amir_Khalid
I have a comment, an entirely innocent one as far as I can tell, awaiting moderation for reasons unknown to me. Help!
Yutsano
@Amir_Khalid: I had the exact same thing just happen. I’m thinking it’s a FYWP quirk.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Yutsano: Nothing regarding FYWP can accurately be termed as innocently as a quirk. The descriptions start at “fuck-up” and get progressively more obscene.
Anne Laurie
@Amir_Khalid:
You just made my night, because that was exactly the image I wanted… and if you’ve ever seen a picture of Orrin Hatch, you’ll know why!
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym(JMN): I’m glad Eddie is feeling better, and you are welcome to say nasty things to me irregardless.
(If I put up the posts I’m thinking about, there will be plenty of nasty to go around, I fear.)
As for tonight’s version of FYWP, all I got is the note that ‘Akismet has detected a server or network problem‘, and decided to hold back half a dozen completely random & superficially innocent comments as a result. Mysterious are the ways of our network/server overlords…
Yutsano
@Anne Laurie: I think this:
pretty much covers anything with FYWP.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Anne Laurie: I think Eddie is doing as well as a finicky, three-legged cat with lymphoma, hepatitis and some sort of skin condition conceivably can be. Right now, he’s insisting that it’s time for me to go to bed. (That’s his favorite time of the day.) I’m seriously thinking about capitulating to his demands, even if that does make me a sell out appeaser.
sukabi
I remember the Meese hearings on p0rn… nothing but a huge excuse for a bunch of old worm tuggers to sit in the well of the house and watch and comment on people f^cking… guess they’ve worn out their last batch of material and are looking for something cleaner…
Holder should send his investigators to do a sweep of the Republican’s and their staffers computers… I’m sure he’d find plenty of p0rn to ask them about… and no, they can’t claim “research” this time around.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
the best thing to come out of the meese commission?
the phrase “big tit dildo bondage”. although, i am sure if they do another one, playboy would be flattered to be considered pr0n again.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@kay:
this.
i for one, never gave a fuck what andrew sullivan thinks, so to me its a bit odd to see his opinion, regardless of what i think of it, gets so much attention.
of course, the attention, sorta helps him then don’t it? as does him responding by name or link to those who criticize him…its not quite a circle jerk, its more like handjobs across america.
sneezy
“The I’m Not Going To Pay A Lot For That Muffler Party”
What does that mean? I get the feeling there’s a pop culture reference here that I don’t know about.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Amir_Khalid: Ha, that is a good image.
The title made me think of the Oingo Boingo song (lyrics here.)
Jay in Oregon
@sneezy:
Here ya go: youtube.com/watch?v=4lk3o-JvfTw
Matt
DO NOT WANT – Chatroulette’s already got enough useless dicks jacking off, it doesn’t need conservative Senators too.
sukabi
@Matt: maybe they’ll finally meet a dick they can enjoy and get out of everyone else’s hair..