from BBC America: The Thick of It

Set inside the corridors of power, this biting satirical comedy lifts the lid on a world of manipulation, back-stabbing and spin. Part scripted and part improvised, The Thick of It stars Chris Langham (People Like Us) as hapless government minister Hugh Abbott and Peter Capaldi (Solid Geometry, Local Hero) as the Prime Minister’s terrifying political advisor and chief spin doctor, Malcolm Tucker….

The big question is: “Who has the real power - Malcolm or the Prime Minister?” With his ability to decide who gets fired from government, influence over choice of top story on the nightly news and numerous methods for “killing” a bad story, Malcolm seems to be the winner…

I just watched the first episode. It’s totally cynical, totally biting, and totally entertaining.

The website provides a handy glossary, which includes Andrew Sullivan’s new favorite word:

Chav
Slang word for those in Britain who are living on social welfare, wear flashy gold jewelry, head-to-toe Burberry or Tommy Hilfiger and white sneakers.

The AP reports that a disclaimer accompanies the just-released paperback edition James Frey’s book My Friend Leonard:

“To call this book pure nonfiction would be inaccurate,” the author writes. “It is a combination of fact and fiction, real and imagined events.”

That’s appropriate, I think. Now the market can decide—the audience will be there or it won’t. And, also important, readers of other memoirs will now know—if they didn’t before—that memoirs are crafted.

Frey will lie low for a while, and within a few years he’ll have reinvented himself. (If his experience as Oprah’s whipping boy doesn’t set back his recovery.)

How do I know? Well, apparently, even O.J. is back. With a reality show. Juiced.

Jeff Weintraub, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania (and Euston Manifesto supporter) whose blog I began reading recently, is calling for American academics to sign a petition against the blacklisting of Israeli academics (which I wrote about here) by a British academic union.

Now this stupid and pernicious idea is being resurrected by members of the other major British academic union, the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE). A blacklist proposal has been introduced to be considered at NATFHE’s national conference on May 27-29. In this case, the blacklist would apply to all Israeli academics, but would be applied in a more underhanded and unaccountable manner. The proposal itself is framed in coded and disingenuous language, but the intent is to endorse a blacklist without exposing NATFHE to possible legal action:

I didn’t realize that Weintraub was involved in the movement to stop the previous attempted blacklist of Israeli academics by British academics (from the other major academic union).

(via Eric Alterman)