"David Carr" and "low-sloping foreheads": forever linked?

[UPDATE: If you ever lived in Missouri or Kansas, please join the Sloping Foreheads Facebook group and get started mocking David Carr.]

Before this weekend, I had never hear of David Carr. Then I saw the video of him on Bill Maher's show, uttering the most condescending arrogant slur on Middle-America that I've ever heard.

Is this David Carr's 15 minutes? Will he have a one-line obtuary that ends with "low sloping foreheads?"

Bloggers, let's make it so.

Every time you write his name, add these words: "the guy who said 'low-sloping foreheads.' "

Maybe soon we can write it this way: "the former NY Times reporter who said 'low-sloping foreheads.' " David Carr should be fired. Pinch Sulzberger, are you listening?

Check out the Lutherville-Timonium Patch

The newest media player in the greater BaltoNorth area.

They're covering local politics, high school sports and so on, giving some much-needed competition to the Towson Times. I've heard good things about them, but have a concern already about the slant of their political coverage.

Here's a nice article by Scott Lowe about Dulaney High School's cross country team and their annual Barnhart Invitational race. (As comparison, here's Tom Worgo's Towson Times piece.)

On the other hand, it seems like ninety percent of the political column-inches so far by Nick DiMarco, Matt Cruz and Doug Donovan are about Democrats.

C'mon guys.

L/T is one of the most Republican areas in Maryland. If you're going to write a puff piece about Democratic campaigns, try to give at least a semblance of balance and publish some pictures of Republicans too.

UPDATE: I missed Nayana Davis's article about Todd Huff's victory over Bryan McIntire. Plenty of column inches there, but the tenor of the article is clearly, if mildly, anti-Republican:

• The story devotes several early paragraphs to miscommunication between the candidates regarding McIntire's concession.
• In addition, the story quotes a Republican candidate swearing. Democrats use expletives too. But somehow I don't expect to see their swears surrounded by quote marks in a Patch story anytime soon.

MSM FAIL

Wright. Jones. Freeman. Edwards.

Time Magazine officially dead

My parents used to subscribe to Time. I recently scanned a few issues. It has gotten badder than bad.

Exhibit I is Joel Stein's recent exercise in self-reference titled Give Hockey (And Me) One More Shot. It includes this delusional statement:

TIME is one of the last places that tries to satisfy the intellectually curious.

Mmmm-kay.

Exhibit II is a piece by Josh Tyrangiel, who writes about his attempt to bankrupt the New York Yankees by overeating at a luxury box buffet. Tyrangiel is Stein's boss (a factoid that I picked up from Stein's navel-gazing effort).

The setup from How to Beat the Yankees with Your Stomach:

I was gifted a $325 ticket to the new Yankee Stadium to see Satan's pinstriped nine play my beloved Baltimore Orioles. It turns out that $325 buys not just an excellent seat but access to the all-you-can-eat buffet in the superswanky Legends Suite.

The plan:

[It] was simple: eat enough so that at the end of the season, the accountants would say ... We lost so much on concessions that night that we can no longer afford to steal a small-market team's best starting pitcher."

I fasted all day [in preparation]...

Tyrangiel serves up standard MSM snark delivered from on high and down low -- with a grating tone that mixes the sensibilities of middle school and the Ivy League. And he bites the hands that feed him:

Sure enough, upon entering the Legends Suite with my ludicrously expensive [free] ticket ... After a survey of the rest of the buffet ... I began to wonder where my seat was.

It goes on:

Turns out you can't really see the game from the buffet area, and it dawned on me that I had been in a room like this before — at Foxwoods Resort Casino. During a brief foray into high-stakes gambling, a friend and I got comped and dove into a mountain of shrimp and lobster tails before stepping out into the casino jacked up on seafood and self-loathing. Well, the Legends Suite is just like that. So many bankers and so much excess that I felt kind of gross for enjoying myself so much.

Hunter Thompson sans personality, insight, talent and style.

More self-reference and cynical snark-as-humor, plus gluttony:

When I arrived at my seat — after grabbing a movie-theater-size bag of peanut M&Ms ($5) to tide me over for the walk — I could admit to being impressed. Third row behind the Yankee dugout. So close I could see the spot where Alex Rodriguez injects his steroids. The great thing? That statement's not even slanderous.

The article dribbles off into nothingness:

I forget who was winning.

Ugh.

R.I.P. Time Magazine.

Sen. Cardin proposes bailout for newspapers

Oy:

"With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, [Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD)] on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks."

CSPAN to provide embeddable video

via The Open House Project:

"CSPAN has come a very long way with their digital video services, evolving from an over-aggressive assertion of copyright to now offering embeddable video."

"Are Environmental Journalists an Endangered Species?"

Joel Makower makes the case that

"The past few weeks and months have been devastating for environmental journalism."

Here in Baltimore, Tom Pelton left the Sun last summer.

Journalism innovations in 2008

From Changes | Newspaper Death Watch:

"the difference between the new breed of online reporting and traditional print journalism. Chief among them is the involvement of readers in the process. Editor Joshua Micah Marshall has even been known to give “assignments” to his readers, asking them to comb through official documents."

via Jeff Jarvis

More adulation heaped on Nancy Grasmick

Nobody is as good as the press she gets.

She may have done some excellent work and she may be immune to flattery. But one wonders whether the relentless praise has gone to her head.

Her longevity, combined with media love that she attracts, brings to mind Alan Greenspan.

Conor Friedersdorf talks about Culture11, a new online magazine

He's an impressively well-spoken young guy.



Culture11 hopes to cover politics, culture, arts, religion & faith from a broadly center-right perspective. Other's have described Culture11 as a conservative Slate. Friedersdorf likens it to a "demilitarized zone" where people of many different conservative & libertarian subcultures can exchange ideas.

He also sees a need for conservatives to engage the press and make it better rather than "bypass the press and discredit it. His solution: fewer conservative journalists and more journalists-who-happen-to-be-conservative.

Baltimore Sun would put "significant conditions" on auto aid

Amazingly, today's editorial -- "Conditional auto aid" -- makes no mention of union work rules or executive abuses. Here are the conditions they do mention:

Congress should name an experienced, respected executive to monitor GM's performance, and GM's leaders should move quickly to reshape the company. If they falter or courts interfere, federal aid should end.

Some of the steps that GM should take are obvious, such as reducing their brands to increase efficiency and cut costs. Health benefits for retirees, to be financed from an $80 billion trust fund established by the company and run by the UAW, also should be pared back.

The Sun's editorial board might try reading Ryan Grim of Politico to get some ideas:

"Emergency assistance to the automobile industry would be conditioned on executive compensation restrictions, a prohibition on golden parachutes, rigorous independent oversight, and other taxpayer protections

UPDATE: Congressman Ruppersberger talked yesterday about the bailout/rescue on the Ron Smith show. For audio, of Dutch, see the six links on the side.

UPDATE:Brian Faughnan at RedState intuits another purpose for the bailout: to protect the flow of UAW union dues. And Bill Hobbs thinks Congress should stop trying to run the car companies and start fixing laws that handcuff them:

why not figure out how to reform the tax and regulatory structure so that Ford, for example, could make money producing and selling that 65-mpg car here?

Palin's economic claptrap not unique & Don't trust pundits at election time

Gary Jones at Muck & Mystery points out that Cafe Hayek has a nice take on Sarah Palin that I hadn't seen elsewhere:

Mr. Zakaria is correct that Gov. Palin's recent answer to a question about the economy "is nonsense - a vapid emptying out of every catchphrase about economics that came into her head." ...

But Mr. Zakaria is incorrect to suppose that these traits separate Gov. Palin from other candidates for high political office. Calls by Senators McCain and Obama for cracking down on "speculators" are full of classic and wrongheaded catchphrases, as is Sen. Obama's vocal skepticism about free trade. Gov. Palin is merely less skilled in passing off inanities and claptrap as profundities.

The same post links to Robin Hanson at Overcoming Bias:

Before becoming a pundit someone may spend a long career as a trustworthy academic or journalist, giving careful measured evaluations of the small issues before them. As a pundit they may even usually give thoughtful reasoned commentary on issues of moderate importance.

But every four years, when a major election is at stake, or when a big crisis appears, styles change. In their world folks mutter, "pull out all the stops, this is really important." They may retain the outward appearance of keeping to their previous standards, but in fact they start to say whatever it takes to push "their side."

Gary adds in agreement:

People that I've come to depend on for sound analysis and useful insight turn into partisan idiots just when their value as careful thinkers would be greatest. They screw up at the worst possible time and lose all credibility.

Defending Ron Smith

Bruce Winand wrote an excellent letter in the Sun this morning, defending Ron Smith against charges of "sneering":

Mr. Smith thoughtfully cites the failures of past presidents for comprehensive health reform and supports his argument that there are limitations on what the executive branch can do.

In an edition where few criticisms of Mr. Obama could be found, the writer seized upon a headline that was neutral and not praising of Mr. Obama and denigrated Mr. Smith and his talk-show medium.

If you listen to Ron Smith's show for any length of time, it's pretty obvious that he is not the sneering type.