Sunday, June 21, 2009

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NYT Reports On Boston Globe Union's Strategy Of "Frustration And Delay" Top
Almost exactly a year ago, on June 23, more than 200 employees at The Boston Globe packed into the newspaper's ground-floor auditorium to hear what visiting executives from The New York Times Company had to say. One worker asked about a company proposal to cut salaries 10 percent.
 
Obama's White House Not Much More Diverse Than Bush's Team: White Males Still Dominate Top
A National Journal study of 366 top Obama administration officials has found that 52 percent are white males, down from 59 percent at this point in President George W. Bush's first term. Eleven percent of those officials are African Americans, compared with 10 percent under Bush. The Journal assessment, out today, said 8 percent of Obama's top folks are Hispanic, compared with 6 percent for Bush. Asian Americans totaled 4 percent of Obama's team and 3 percent of Bush's, according to the Journal.
 
Harry Shearer: Attention, Don Rumsfeld: Here's What You've Yearned For Top
In an excerpt from his book on former SecDef Donald Rumsfeld, Brad Graham quotes Mr. "Stuff Happens" thusly on the subject of the hated media: Part of the formula, Rumsfeld added, involved pillorying him along with Bush and Cheney but sparing Powell and Rice. As an example, he noted accusations that Bush and Cheney had lied about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction in making the case for the invasion of Iraq. "They never say Colin Powell lied," Rumsfeld asserted. "They don't say Condi lied." Don? This thing on? Here you go: Colin Powell lied. Condi lied. I've said it before. I'll say it again. I'm sure HuffPo hasn't made it into your briefing folders, so just check out "Smooth Moves" on iTunes. Or "Gym Buds". Maybe you're buying into the whole "Negroes have a free pass" thing that some older white guys cling to, as a way of feeling victimized while simultaneously being unbelievably privileged. No matter. Colin lied. Condi lied. You lied. Your protege Dick Cheney lied. Male, female, black, white--the entourage is linked, bonded in mendacity. Relax. It's not just about you. Although you're a big part of it. More on Colin Powell
 
Scott Mendelson: Huff Post box office in review for 06/20/09... Top
Not much new to report here . The Proposal had a decent 2.75x multiplier, ending the weekend with $34.1 million. That makes this film the ninth-biggest romantic comedy opening of all time (just $81,000 behind Norbit ). This nearly doubles the previous opening weekend peak for Sandra Bullock, as her prior record holder, Premonition , opened to $17.5 million. Bullock has always been less of a sprinter and more of a marathon runner, so it'll be interesting to see how this fast out of the gate film holds up over the long haul. On the plus side, the word of mouth is solid and there is little competition until The Ugly Truth arrives on July 24th. Just how much credit Ryan Reynolds deserves for this opening is certainly worth discussing, but for now I'll simply chalk it up to putting two popular stars in a winning concept. Reynolds certainly gains more than Bullock, since he has been quietly doing solid work in films as varied as The Amityville Horror , The Nine , and Definitely Maybe . I still think that the Deadpool spin off is a terrible idea (especially if it's expensive), and a waste of his talent, but an opening like this is just the thing to get it on the fast track. The ads highlighting a foul-mouthed Betty White didn't hurt either, although she's been doing that shtick since Lake Placid ten years prior. In second place was The Hangover , which fell just 18% for a $26.8 million. This is starting to play like The Sixth Sense of R-rated comedies. I can only guess that the film is continuing to expand beyond the frat-boy core, a theory which will be tested when Transformers 2 steals each and every frat boy away next weekend. The film has already reached $152 million, and it should surpass the $175 million gross of There's Something About Mary by the end of next weekend. If it can weather the onslaught of Revenge of the Fallen , the R-rated comedy champ ( Beverly Hills Cop at $234 million) is in serious peril. It's too early to predict whether or not the film will threaten Home Alone 's $281 million for the all-time comedy crown, but it is definitely going to be the second-choice for moviegoers for the rest of the summer. Random question... how much is an R-rated phenomenon like this a boon to all the other non-R rated films in the marketplace? IE - how much of the grosses of the competition is just kids buying tickets to other stuff and sneaking into The Hangover ? Third place went to Pixar's Up, which lived up to its name as it powered up the all-time animated chart. Now at $224 million, it has surpassed W all-E and Ratatouille and now sits at #10 on the top-grossing toons list. It's still dragging just a bit behind Finding Nemo (which had $228 million at this point), and it will lose many of its 3D screens when Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs opens on July 1st, but this one is so far playing like a $300 million+ earner. I must say, if it does make it to $300 million, it'll be the quietest such earner in memory. No one I know is really talking all that much about it. The excellence of Pixar is so taken for granted that no one needs to go out of their way to rave about it. Fourth place goes to the new comedy Year One . Despite the prevalence of well-reviewed films succeeded ( Star Trek ) and poorly reviewed films tanking ( Terminator: Salvation ), it bares well to remember that critics usually don't have much of an impact on opening weekend. Hence the solid $20 million opening for the Jack Black and Michael Cera vehicle shouldn't be that much of a surprise. Yes, the reviews were putrid, but the core Jack Black fans and general fans of stupid comedy didn't care less. Nothing to see here folks. In other news, The Taking of Pelham 123 dropped a poor 50%, meaning that the core older audience is either drawn to other fare ( The Proposal , The Hangover , etc) or they already saw the original in 1974 and had no interest in this redo. Just a thought, maybe they should have just tinkered with the script just enough so that they could call it something else and sell it as an original Denzel Washington/John Travolta action vehicle. Star Trek is now at $239 million, while Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian has surpassed its $150 million budget. Globally, domestic underperformers Terminator Salvation and Angels & Demons are (as expected) making up for it overseas. T4 is approaching $300 million global sales while Da Vinci Code 2 is just below $450 million (still far and away the year's highest grossing film overall). Land of the Lost has out grossed Speed Racer, and Drag Me to Hell is just below $40 million. That's all that's fit to print. I'll do periodic updates for the Wednesday debut of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (barring the variables of life, a review will arrive on Monday night or Tuesday morning). We'll know a lot more about the long term end points of several major titles ( Up , The Hangover , etc) once we see how hard the robots hit and how the holdovers react. Cue the dramatic Hans Zimmer music... now. Scott Mendelson
 
WSJ: Why Won't Obama Embrace Real Reform On Credit-Rating Agencies? Top
If world-class lobbying could win a Stanley Cup, the credit-ratings caucus would be skating a victory lap this week. The Obama plan for financial re-regulation leaves unscathed this favored class of businesses whose fingerprints are all over the credit meltdown.
 
The Animal Kingdom's Greatest Survivors Top
Physical power, sharp teeth, and speed are characteristics of some of the most fearsome creatures in the animal kingdom. However, there are other animals who survive because they are physically tough and able to adapt to difficult situations with ease. More on Animals
 
Olga Serjantov, Ex-Wife Of "Amber King," Claims Tycoon Cut Off $30,000-A-Month Payments Top
The city's "amber king" is forcing his estranged wife and their three young kids to live like peasants by cutting off their $30,000-a-month support payments, the spurned spouse says.
 
The Sexiest PETA Ads Of All Time! You Choose The Winner! (SLIDESHOW) (POLL) Top
In the wake of Lydia Guevara, Che's Granddaughter, striking a titillating pose for PETA , we decided to take a look back at the animal rights group's hottest print promotions of the past decade so you can tell us which you like best. More on Advertising
 
Eric Kuhn: Behind the NRDC's Social Media Strategy Top
When the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) needs to generate attention for environmental issues - ranging from bees to global warming - one of the people they turn to is Apollo Gonzales , the Netroots campaign manager. While he still believes traditional media (newspaper and television) is "king" in spreading information, in an interview for the Huffington Post, he shed some light into the NRDC's social media strategy. Eric Kuhn: First, what are some of the biggest issues that the NRDC is trying to spread the word about right now? Apollo Gonzales: Well, every issue we're working on is big to those in the affiliated program, whether it is our work on bees and colony collapse disorder, or the global warming and the Energy bill. We've got lots of campaigns in various stages of development, in addition to the two I just mentioned we're working to stop Mountain Top Removal, to spread the word about the value of Green jobs, protecting wildlife like Wolves and Polar Bears, exposing the truth about coal and other dirty fuels like Tar Sands, Oil Shale and Liquid coal. The list is endless. One of the issues you are focusing on is the plight of bears and wolves from Yellowstone. How does the communications department try to market an issue like this to people on line? We take a very holistic approach to communicating our issues. The traditional silos of media (print, television, web, etc.) just work better when they are informing one another. So while we've got action alerts going to peoples in boxes our press team is making and taking calls and our web team is featuring the issue on the website. That is just the start though, we're also getting our staff (who work on the issue) to blog about it on Switchboard , and we're sending the action and the blog to our Facebook fans, all the while sending messages to our Twitter followers. Often, the case is that a bump in attention in one place leads to a bump in attention to the other spaces. How does the NRDC utilize Twitter, Facebook and other social networks to try and make your causes "viral"? Initially, these spaces are a great distribution channel. Our content can be delivered right to the places people live online. That is the easy part to all of this, but these spaces are about engagement not just distribution. So we really try to listen to what people are saying about the issues and our content. We thank them for sharing our links, we point them to places where they can learn more, we promote their thoughts and contributions to the conversation within the channel. From a technical standpoint we are always looking at making our content as portable as possible so folks can share and redistribute our content in a way they choose. What is the most effective way to spread the word about an issue? Is it social networks, your blogs or something else? Television and newspapers are still king. They reach a massive audience more efficiently and effectively than any other medium. So to the extent that we can get a plug or a platform via those channels, we'll take it every time. Often we don't have that opportunity so we rely on the things you mention - social networks, blogs, Twitter, email, and our website. Every campaign is different, but putting energy in the blogosphere does really well for us. Whether we blog at Switchboard , or some outside blogger picks up our issue, with a little massaging we can give a blog post legs. A blog post is easy to link to, can be visually impressive (video, photo), comes with a built in audience of some size, and almost always has a sharing function built in. The blog post is the foundation that we build the social media strategy upon. More on Twitter
 
Susan Sisko Carter: Awesome Top
"How could that be possible? A year? No...can't be. Seems like it just happened." That's what people say when I tell them: George Carlin died on June 22 -- a year ago. A fact that is, indeed, hard to believe. Celebrity sightings in Los Angeles are as ubiquitous as skinny palm trees. Pick the right coffee place at the right moment and you, too, can wait for a cappuccino behind Michelle Pfeiffer or Ed Harris. I've seen Mel Gibson furtively wolfing down a chocolate tart, glimpsed Robert Duvall at a parking meter. I've scooped steel-cut oats from a bottom bin at Whole Foods while looking up at John Turturro. At the frame shop, I pondered matting materials alongside that bald actor -- you know the one -- from Sex and the City . While driving up 26th Street near San Vicente, Martin Short gave me the finger. Such frequent approximation to celebrity can become humdrum (finger episode excluded), or lend misplaced hope to the show-biz schemer, oblivious to celebrity body language -- hat pulled down over forehead, eyes fixed on the floor -- a silent plea: "Do not let me know you recognize me." I met George Carlin the week that he died. He didn't care who recognized him. I was seated at the empty family-table of the just opened bakery/café annex to the vegan restaurant, Real Food Daily, in Santa Monica, as haggard employees struggled to cope with the ragged transition. "They just opened and they're more than a tad disorganized," I said to a smart-eyed, amiably attractive customer, who looked like she coped just fine. "What are you eating?" she asked. "Miso glazed tofu tartine." "It looks good...is it?" "Delicious." The woman joined a man at the take-out counter, as he said to me: "You should try one of these." I recognized the voice. I looked up from my glazed tofu and there he was -- George Carlin...pointing to a jar of ginger cookies on the bakery display-case. He ran down the merits of the cookie, and I liked him immediately. The new guy, at the new lime-green counter, handed George a large brown bag of vegan food, and said: "Awesome." "No..." George said. "Picking up vegan food to-go is not awesome." Then he rattled off a couple of examples of what was awesome. Something about the sky and the sun, I think. I can't be certain, because my mind was busy reaching a conclusion: George Carlin talks exactly like, well...George Carlin. He wasn't walking it like he talked it--he was living it like he talked it. Nothing patronizing in his tone. He was just setting a guy straight, his voice an invitation to awareness; an almost-playful alerting to the ridiculous misuse of the word: awesome. I remembered that, recently, in the ladies room of another restaurant, I'd noticed the brand name, scripted in bold black letters, on a package of toilet seat covers -- AWESOME. Awesome toilet seat covers. "Awesome...an absurdly overused word," I said to George, as I plunged a carrot into wasabi mayo. "Did you know when George Bush met the Pope, he told him he was awesome?" He walked over to me, shook my hand and said: "I'm George Carlin." "I recognized your voice," I said, then introduced myself: "I'm a writer...words are important to me." He asked what kind of writing? I explained that I'd stopped writing for movies and TV to write my first novel, which I'd just finished (blissfully unaware of the many drafts yet to come.) His appreciation for the achievement was genuine. The woman stepped outside. But George stuck around, long enough for us to talk a little bit more about words. I expressed my bafflement over the phrase: "Your problem is you're taking me literally." We talked about the word "guest"...as used by tellers and clerks: "Next guest in line please." Then we shook hands, goodbye, and he left. A few bites of tofu tartine, some baby bok choy...and there was George, again, entering the café. "My wife, Sally," he said to me. "She's a writer too. We've been together ten years...and it's been great," he said, as if he were marveling that it truly was great. "She's out in the car, now. She wanted me to ask you if you'd written for Tom Hanks." I knew that writing with Tom Hanks, in mind, didn't count, so I said, "No. I've never written for Tom Hanks." "Sally thought maybe she knew you." "I thought you were coming back to tell me I was awesome," I said with a laugh. "You are awesome," he said. I asked if he and Sally lived in Santa Monica. He said, yes. I mentioned a slightly loony restaurant on Main Street. George recommended a new one on Montana. "I'll look for you two around town," I said. As he stepped outside, I told him: "Stay awesome." George said that he would. A couple of weeks ago, while walking down Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills, I had an urban epiphany: everyone walking on the sidewalk -- both sides of the street -- was on his or her cellphone...everyone but me. Then I saw an Asian woman, walking toward me; she wasn't on her cell, either. "Yay!" I said to her. "You're not on your cellphone...you and me -- we're the only ones who aren't talking on her cells." She looked blankly at me and said: "I no understand you." It was eerily isolating...like a scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers . Meeting George had been the exact opposite: a connection with a like-minded human that had lifted me. I've been thinking about George -- his classic routine on stuff -- while dealing with my own stuff, in storage. Thought about George when a Verizon supervisor informed me, on the phone, during a bill-dispute: "Ma'am...you've already been 'educated' by Verizon." And when an employee at the Apple store rammed his shoulder into mine, hurrying past me with an unapologetic "I'm sorry"...two smug Apple Guys explaining his rudeness like it made perfect sense: "He's a genius--he's on his way to the Genius Bar." "Yet, he doesn't seem to possess the attributes of a genius," I said. "He's a tech," they said with disgust. And I imagined what verbal circles George could spin around those Apple-knuckleheads. Maybe when people die, our memories of them are distilled, allowing us a glimpse of their essence. Maybe that is why we can imagine someone, who is no longer living, advising us. I am making a mental note to myself, a cerebral mission statement: take the time to talk with the people you want to talk with while they're here, on this earth. And when you talk, pick your words carefully so you express exactly what it is you wish to say. Because connecting with kindred spirits while they're alive is truly--awesome. A message has suddenly appeared on my computer screen: Do you wish to save "Carlin"? it is asking me. Yes...no? I am imagining George, advising. He is saying: "Too late." But I click: "Yes."
 
Robert Kuttner: The Policy That Dare Not Speak Its Name Top
I'm sure I'm not the only reader who noticed the juxtaposition of two front page stories in Sunday's New York Times dealing with health care. The first article cited a new Times-CBS poll showing that 72 percent of Americans favored a government run health plan comparable to Medicare, which would be available to everyone. The second reported on a rogue radiologist at a Philadelphia VA hospital who botched 92 prostate procedures. The right will doubtless go to town on that one, as what we can expect of government-sponsored medicine. I'll have more to say about the VA in a moment, but first let's consider the poll findings. The poll is relevant because Congress will soon decide whether to include the so-called "public option" in the Obama health reform bill. As drafted by three House leaders and unveiled last Wednesday, the 852-page bill would include a government-sponsored, Medicare-like public plan. Republicans and the health industry have been kicking and screaming that this is socialistic. But the poll suggests that defenders of the public plan have nothing to fear politically, and that Republicans are in danger of getting on the wrong side of a popular issue. However, that's only the beginning of the story. The reform package, as drafted by the Obama administration and the House leadership, is dubious legislation even with the inclusion of a public option. Basically, it leaves the two worst aspects of the system intact. First, private insurers will continue to dominate. Second, most people will continue to get their insurance through their employers. Given these two bedrock realities, there is no way that the bill can make serious inroads on cost without cutting back on care. The high cost of the approach is already causing key legislators to back off. The current system wastes huge sums, but because it is so fragmented the money flows to profit opportunities and not to the most cost-effective forms of health care. Also, as my American Prospect colleague Paul Starr warns, a mixed system with a public option effectively invites the most expensive and hard-to-treat people to opt for the public plan, while private insurers will seek to insure the young and the healthy. This is a familiar problem known as adverse selection. The private insurers will then smugly point out that the public plan is less "efficient," when in fact it simply will have a more costly population. The only way to avoid this problem is to have everyone in the same universal plan--what's otherwise known as a single-payer plan. The public option is a not-very-good second best--because our leading liberal politicians lack the nerve to embrace the one reform that simultaneously solves the problem of cost, quality, and universal inclusion. The policy that dare not speak its name is of course comprehensive national health insurance, or Medicare-for-All. I try to avoid using the term "single payer," because a technical, policy-wonk phrase not understood by most civilians has become insider shorthand for national health insurance. Let's call the thing by its rightful name. Medicare-for-All is something regular people understand. The Times-CBS poll is evidence that this is what more than two Americans in three really want. Most voters have not followed the nuances of how the public option in the Obama plan would compete with private insurance. The poll simply indicates that voters want access to a straight-up, Medicare-style plan to be available to one and all. In past polls, when Times-CBS pollsters ask whether people favor national health insurance, responses generally favor Medicare-for-All by margins of about two-to-one. In the current debate, liberals find themselves fighting to keep the public option alive, so that some form of efficient, publicly-run health insurance will stay in the mix--but knowing that it is embedded in a reform package that is far more costly and inefficient than it should have been. Instead of validating the common sense and reformist demands of ordinary Americans and identifying the insurance, drug, and corporate elites as the obstacles to real reform, too many of our liberal leaders from President Obama on down hope to co-opt business elites with a convoluted scheme that undermines the efficiencies of a comprehensive and universal system. And just wait until it gets watered down further in order to retain the support of these same elites. A plan that all of these groups would endorse would not be worth having. So what's the matter with our politicians? Why are the people so far ahead of their elected leaders on this one? One reason, as usual, is money. The combination of the insurance industry, the drug industry, the American Medical Association, the hospital lobby--all of whom oppose Medicare-for-All--represents a huge amount of political spending. It takes a brave politician to face down all of these industries, even though the people are on the side of real reform. The AMA's position is especially shameful, since the professional societies that represent most actual physicians favor national health insurance. The second reason that liberal politicians wimp out on single payer is that the self-styled realists in this debate have decided that Medicare-for-All, even if it's the first-best system, is too hard politically. But think about it. Has the administration picked up one Republican vote by supporting the present system plus a public option? Hardly. The current House leadership bill, offering a mixed system, with a robust public option, a requirement that employers provide good insurance or pay a tax, and that insurers not discriminate against pre-existing conditions, is just as heavy a political lift as national health insurance--and far inferior policy. So why not just go for the first-best? The advocates of Medicare-for-All have become something of an embarrassment to the liberals. The White House forum on health reform on March 5th, which boasted a diverse range of viewpoints, including representatives of the Business Roundtable, the health insurance industry, the drug lobby, as well as a broad spectrum of business, labor and Congressional leaders, left advocates of Medicare-for-All banging on the door. None were included, despite requests for invitations. When Sen. Bernie Sanders recently arranged for five prominent advocates of national health insurance to have a courtesy meeting with Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus, the story was newsworthy because the political elite usually pretends that this viewpoint doesn't exist, much less that it represents the desires of two Americans in three. The mainstream media have also colluded in the general effort to keep the single-payer option out of the limelight. The organization FAIR recently published an important study in its heroic magazine, "Extra", titled " Media Blackout on Single-Payer Healthcare. " Indeed, the Sunday New York Times-CBS poll didn't even offer Medicare-for-All as a free-standing option. It took the Obama position as the left edge of the debate. As for that rogue doctor at the Philadelphia veterans' hospital, quality control is not what it should be throughout our fragmented system. And the oases of public medicine are particularly starved for resources. Yet studies consistently find that on average, the VA does more with less than its private sector competitors. Phil Longman has written the definitive book on the subject, "Best Care Anywhere." Here is a summary . In this case, the offending radiologist, Dr. Gary D. Kao, was actually a contract employee and not a VA physician. Only by having a comprehensive system can we marry quality, cost-effective care, and universal access. One of these days, a national leader will have the nerve to embrace national health insurance and fight for it. Until then, we will keep paying more money for less care, and liberals will defend reforms they themselves scarcely believe in. Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect , and senior fellow at Demos . His recent book is " Obama's Challenge ". More on Barack Obama
 
David Weiner: #Thatsafrican -- When Twitter Went Racist? Top
UPDATE , 9:30pm EST: #Thatsafrican is no longer a trend. Was it taken down by Twitter? *** Oh man, this won't end well at all. Just as Twitter began to show the world how important the new medium can be, beating back claims that the tiny technology had already jumped the shark, somebody's got to go rain on their parade. For those of you who closely monitor Twitter trends, you already know what I'm talking about, but for the other 99.99% of the population, here's the deal: In recent days there've been a spate of user-participatory hashtag memes popping up on Twitter such as #nicerfilmtitles , in which thousands of people attempted to rewrite movie titles in a, well, nicer way. These were fun exercises in brainpower and cleverness and played up the lighter-side of a technology that has, as of late, been stuck in the deep, dark bowels of Iran. How is this a problem? It's not. Or wasn't, until sometime today when the term #thatsafrican became a trending topic on Twitter. The debate is already raging over the appropriateness of the trend. Is it self-deprecating humor? A cover for racists? Something only Africans and African-Americans can joke about? Something no one should be talking about? What's more, it brings into question the role of free speech on Twitter and the company's role as moderator, or lack thereof. If a popular trend on Twitter is deemed racist, what action is required on the part of the company? With the situation in Iran showing the extreme positives of Twitter and free speech, it will be interesting to see if #thatsafrican or another controversial trend will end up exemplifying the negatives. More on Twitter
 

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