A bemused Paul Farhi at the WaPo notes the plethora of flashing labels that the cable channels slap onto our monitors:

President Bush’s latest news conference? CNN labels it a “Developing Story.” A car bombing in Baghdad? The banner on MSNBC reads, “Breaking News.” A blown transformer in New York City? Fox News Channel is on it, with a graphic that announces, “Very Latest.”

Sometimes a story is a “News Alert.” Sometimes it’s a “Bulletin.” And sometimes the banner reads, “New Developments” (although if there are new developments in a “Developing Story,” shouldn’t it really say “Developing Developing Story”?).

The dizzying world of news labels raises many questions. Is it possible for a “Developing Story” to become “Developed,” like a Polaroid picture or a post-adolescent woman? Does “Breaking News” ever become “Broken” (and if so, can it be “fixed”)?

Why the urgency? Farhi wonders.

Isn’t all news just, you know, new information?

Well, yeah. But we the audience are busy people and we get bored easily unless a lot of visuals get thrown at us, in which case we stop and stare at the screen. And of course it’s not as if the cable folks are actually interested in telling us the news. They’re interested in keeping their advertisers happy … or else. So:

Jeremy Gaines, a spokesman for MSNBC, replies that the labels “telegraph the story in a visual way” for channel-surfing viewers.

It’s all about the telegraphing. More on this another time.

Hillary scores:

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., said today that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, her chief rival for the Democratic nomination, made comments that were “irresponsible and frankly naive” when he said in Monday night’s debate that he would meet with leaders of rogue nations during his first year in office.

Clinton’s response, made in an interview with an Iowa newspaper, marks the sharpest exchange to date between the top two Democratic candidates for president — and the first time Clinton has explicitly attacked another Democratic candidate.

She lost no time at all.

You didn’t hear them from me. You heard them from Andrew Franklin:

One of the first things every editor is taught is that the rejection letter should be final, that is, it should not give any opportunity for a response. When you return the manuscript you never want to have to think about it again. So it is fatal to suggest that, for example, the plot is quite good but needs work in the closing chapters, or that there are too many characters, or that the dialogue needs work. Send these suggestions to the writer you don’t want and you are entering the long-term relationship from hell, because in three weeks the manuscript will come straight back at you with the changes you have recommended. So publishers use euphemistic - all right, let’s be honest, weaselly - phrases when rejecting manuscripts, like “not quite right for our list” or “would not fit our publishing programme”. The clear subtext is that the manuscript is unpublishable and the writer should consign it to their bottom drawer. For ever.

Andrew Franklin is British. He lives in England. That’s across the Pond, so not to worry—surely things are different over here, eh?

However, Franklin’s revelations are as nothing compared to the weirdly entrancing and supremely self-serving imagined “revelations” of one John Barnes about the real identity of TNR’s mystery writer “Scott Thomas,” who made the U.S. military look so bad:

I think I have a pretty good guess as to who “Scott Thomas” is – not his identity but what sort of person the Thomas-hunters should be looking for — based mainly on looking at his writing and at the social context of The New Republic from my unique perspective. I seriously doubt there is another consulting semiotician who is also a book doctor and part-time agency reader, and doubt even further that there is another one who has  read “Thomas’s” New Republic piece.

Credentials firmly established, Barnes goes on to speculate about the type of person who might have written the piece:

He (it is always a he) is an MFA candidate or recent graduate at one of the big-name creative writing programs in the USA, sometimes in poetry, usually in fiction, and increasingly in “creative non-fiction” (the litsy byline that “feature writing” took on when it moved uptown, became significant, and stopped having lunch with its old buds at the newspapers).  Usually he is in his mid-twenties and is probably among the bright stars in the tiny constellation (and complicated pecking order) that MFA programs create.  His particular niche in that social ecology will be the Big Talent With Big Balls, a role that requires some claim to a “dangerous” or “edgy” past, meaning some connection to interpersonal violence and to having seen some gruesome sights.  (Being recently back from combat duty in Iraq, particularly if the young man is a reservist who will be going back for another hitch there, would certainly fit the bill nicely – at various times I have known such characters to claim to be motorcycle gang members, to have smuggled cocaine into the US in small boats, and to have competed as Ultimate Fighting professionals).

Sounds like someone has been reading way too many manuscripts from the slush pile.

Paula Zahn is gone.

The unraveling of “Paula Zahn Now,” which made its debut at 8 p.m. in 2003, was ultimately a function of ratings.

Ya think? You mean America doesn’t Idolize a sharp-tongued blonde with a grating manner?

The terminally naive former nun Karen Armstrong, hailed after 9/11 as an expert on Islam and loved by the opinion elite for her counsel to turn the other cheek (which seems to be the one-size-fits-all recommendation of uber-Christians like Armstrong and that Carter fella to Westerners confronted by barbaric violence masquerading as Islam) is at it again. The headline for her latest opinion piece in the Guardian reads as follows:

An inability to tolerate Islam contradicts western values

Armstrong, addressing the thorny issue of freedom of expression, claims that it is “sacred” to the West:

In the west, however, liberty of expression proved essential to the economy; it has become a sacred value in our secular world, regarded as so precious and crucial to our identity that it is non-negotiable. Modern society could not function without independent and innovative thought, which has come to symbolise the inviolable sanctity of the individual.

Then comes the inevitable but. But. But. But.

[Freedom of expression] has also, as we have been reminded recently, become a rallying cry in the escalating tension between the Islamic world and the west. Muslim protests against Rushdie’s knighthood have recalled the painful controversy of The Satanic Verses, and last week four British Muslims were sentenced to a total of 22 years in prison for inciting hatred while demonstrating against the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Armstrong claims that Muslims polled in ten countries admire our freedoms. So why, when confronted with Western freedom of expression that offends their sensibilities, are we treated to the fatwas, the hysteria, the rioting, and the exhortations to behead infidels who would dare to criticize what Muslims hold dear?

In the past Islamic governments were as prone to intellectual coercion as any pre-modern rulers, but when Muslims were powerful and felt confident they were able to take criticism in their stride. But media and literary assaults have become more problematic at a time of extreme political vulnerability in the Islamic world, and to an alienated minority they seem inseparable from Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay and the unfolding tragedy of Iraq.

[e.a.]

In this formulation, the powerful West (all of it, including the editorial board of a Danish newspaper) should take the insecurity of Muslims (all 1.4 billion of them) into account before daring to criticize or offend them.

This is appropriately kind-hearted and “nice” and therefore politically correct. But it’s wrongheaded, and anti-democratic.

It is the unwillingness to name names, to criticize everyone equally—including those who perceive themselves to be weak—that contradicts Western values. Because it accords special (and condescending) rights to minorities at the sacrifice of the freedoms of the majority.

Freedom of speech for thee and for me.

Two rabbis from the Wiesenthal Center are outraged that the precious words of Hamas representatives were recently published on the op-ed pages of the L.A. Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post:

Consider Hamas’ summer hot streak. Not only has it driven Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas out of Gaza, threatened Israeli civilians and bombarded fellow Palestinians, but it has scored the ultimate media trifecta. First, the New York Times and the Washington Post simultaneously ran Op-Ed articles by Ahmed Yousef, a senior leader of Hamas who defended his group’s bloody putsch in Gaza. Now, the Los Angeles Times has opened its Op-Ed page to Hamas political bureau deputy Mousa Abu Marzook for his insidious take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I agree with the rabbis that there’s no need for the editorial boards of American newspapers to give those We will never recognize Israel *** Hamas shitballs a platform so that they come off sounding reasonable, which they are not, as their shitball actions and behavior prove time and again.

But haven’t the rabbis heard? Newspapers are dead. Today’s op-ed is tomorrow’s Already Been Masticated^TM blogospheric flotsam and jetsam. Onward with the project of gaining supporters—i.e., PRopaganda^TM—at Feiler Faster speed.

————-
*** One of many such statements was delivered by the deposed “prime minister” Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last December:

“We will never recognise the usurper Zionist government and will continue our jihad-like movement until the liberation of Jerusalem,” Mr Haniyeh told thousands of Friday prayer worshippers at Tehran University in Iran.

Today, Glitter and Doom*** walk hand in hand on the front page of the New York Times:

Doom, above the fold,

Ethiopia Is Said to Block Food to Rebel Region

The Ethiopian government is blockading emergency food aid and choking off trade to large swaths of a remote region in the eastern part of the country that is home to a rebel force, putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk of starvation, Western diplomats and humanitarian officials say.

unimaginable glitter below:

Setting Restaurant Records by Selling the Sizzle

This is Tao Las Vegas, the highest grossing independent restaurant in the United States, according to Restaurants & Institutions magazine, which for 24 years has been ranking the top 100. In 2006, its first full year open, Tao did $55.2 million in business, or $16 million more than its closest competitor, Tavern on the Green in New York [e.a.].

I know, I know—we live in a capitalist country. There’s nothing wrong with making money. Still … Dude!

We’re gorging ourselves under the protection of 20-foot Buddhas!

————————-

*** Inspired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s German Expressionist show of the same name, I wrote about Glitter and Doom here and here.

And once again, for your viewing pleasure:

“I Shall Exterminate Everything around me That Restricts Me from Being the Master,” George Grosz, 1921

(image scanned from the book that accompanies the show)

One commenter at the Guardian arts blog presents the pragmatist’s case for punctuation:

Punctuation is an arbitrary system of marks that writers of a given language agree to use, primarily to avoid ambiguity and increase readability. For example, “the potato’s boiling in the small pot” is an unambiguous phrase until you realise that the person who wrote it may think that “potato’s” is a plural.

In poetry (and sometimes prose), the absence of punctuation (no initial caps, full stops, etc.) is used to create ambiguity and involve the reader. outsideofthesespecificinstanceswhereauthorsdontusepunctuationsoas
toachieveaspecificeffectitsabsenceormis’useisapainintheneck

Brilliant!

Or, What the Hell is Wrong with Americans [e.a.]? 

A recent study by Orbitz, the online travel company, found a drop in the number of people taking three-week or two-week vacations and an increase in those taking a week or less. One-third of respondents said they took five or fewer days of vacation in the past year.

Their reasons?

Nancy Kirk doesn’t have anything against vacations; she just doesn’t consider them worth the effort …

[Professor Wallace Huffman] said it can be difficult for working couples to coordinate time off, and that some people worry that they’ll fall hopelessly behind at work if they take even a few days off.

I sympathize, and I empathize. But come on, folks.  Five days off a year?

Rudy Giuliani takes the bull by the horns and names a bunch of brilliant hawkish strategists as his foreign policy team:

Giuliani’s adroit choices for his foreign policy team are likely to enhance his popularity among members of the Republican Party. His campaign has announced the lineup (appropriately enough on the day of the All-Star game - because they are certainly stars) and will likely win praise from the right. Many of the foreign policy members come from the Hoover Institution, the esteemed think-tank located in on the campus of Stanford University. This will play well with many of the influential members of the Republican Party base.

Meanwhile, in Gotham City, some firefighters try to puncture the myth:

In a video being released today, New York City firefighters and their families criticize former mayor Rudy Giuliani for his handling of the Sept. 11 , 2001, terrorist attacks.

Many firefighters have a history of animosity toward Giuliani, now a leading Republican presidential candidate.

They argue that Giuliani’s administration failed to provide adequate radios for first-responders at the World Trade Center. And they remain angry at his decision to speed the removal of the enormous pile of rubble at ground zero, cutting back the size of the group searching for remains.

Which narrative will win—Rudy as Churchill or Rudy as mean-spirited, dysfunctional fascist? Tune in to find out!

And don’t forget that this is but the first attempt, and that Al Sharpton hasn’t even begun to fight Rudy yet.

CROWLEY: … By the way, I spoke about Giuliani’s increasingly likely White House bid with another former presidential candidate, the Reverend Al Sharpton, just a little while ago, and he had some very sharp criticism for the former mayor. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: You were quoted in “The Times”, “The New York Times” on Sunday as saying so right now he can lead all the media and the national pundits on the yellow brick road. He better never let us get near that veil. I know what’s back there. I’ve pierced it before. What are you alluding to?

REV. AL SHARPTON, PRES., NATIONAL ACTION NETWORK: Well I think that Rudy Giuliani had one of the most polarizing and divisive terms of mayor in the history of the city of New York. Anyone knows that. His confrontations with the communities of African Americans and Latinos, his problems in terms of dividing this city, and many other issues will come to light. I think that as soon as the honeymoon is over with the media and he jumps in the ring, he becomes fair game, and I think that a lot of the title of America’s mayor, people are going to have to examine what that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) was, and it will not be as flattering as it has been up until now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The Reverend Al Sharpton. We asked Giuliani’s office for comments. So far we have not received a specific comment to that charge by the Reverend Al Sharpton.

That was in February. As far as I know, Giuliani hasn’t answered yet. As I said: Stay tuned!