from MSNBC.com
Sad news from Hollywood this week: veteran character actor Bruno Kirby died on Monday from complications relating to leukemia. You may not have known Kirby by name, but you probably knew him by face and surely by voice: he had a string of amazing, delightful roles in some of the greats: Jess, Harry's neurotic writer friend in "When Harry Met Sally," who looks at Carrie Fisher and promises, "You'll never have to be out there again;" Tony the chatty, Sinatra-loving limo driver in "This Is Spinal Tap" (see his brilliant, hilarious yet totally sweet rendition of "All The Way" in this deleted scene); the guy who sends himself and his buddies off to a dude ranch in "City Slickers," setting off a chain of events that leads to the adoption of one adorable Norman (loved that movie, not ashamed to admit); and, of course, as the young Clemenza in "The Godfather II" (a sequel, it's fair to say, that was probably a little more well-received than "City Slickers II"). To the unschooled, Kirby was that guy who was often "that guy" — familiar, welcome, and distinctive; no doubt many people had that reaction a few weeks ago when he cropped up in "Entourage" as Shrek-doll loving producer Phil Rubenstein, another of the smart, satisfying casting choices made on that show. He will, I'm sure, be missed.
Those wondering what "Baby Fish Mouth" means can find it here.
From Publisher's Lunch:
"Amy Sutherland's WHAT I LEARNED FROM SHAMU, based on her "most-emailed" NYT Modern Love article about applying the principles of exotic animal training to her marriage, extending those lessons to other everyday relationship challenges -- from your brother-in-law's chronic lateness to your boss's OCD to the driver who likes to tailgate, to Stephanie Higgs at Random House, in a pre-empt, by Jane Chelius of the Jane Chelius Literary Agency (world)."
There's nothing do to here, really, other than point out that the word "Shamu" doesn't actually appear in the article. And also to point out that we said it first. Now we will recommence smacking ourselves repeatedly in the head.
The New York Sun reports today that Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. has rebuked star reporter and Fiasco author Thomas E. Ricks for suggesting on CNN's "Reliable Sources" that Israel was intentionally leaving Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon "because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations." Ricks attributed the theory to "some U.S. military analysts."
The comment prompted swift action from the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, led by former New York City mayor Ed Koch, who pressed the Post on the issue. Downie replied to Koch, writing: "I have made clear to Tom Ricks that he should not have made those statements."
Ricks, a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter, told the Sun, "The comments were accurate: that I said I had been told this by people. I wish I hadn't said them, and I intend from now on to keep my mouth shut about it."
A note on moral equivalency, since it was raised: It's a point that came up this past weekend in the context of doctored and staged photos coming out of Lebanon in relation to the Israel-Hezbollah-Lebanon conflict. The LA Times's Tim Rutten said this:
It's worth noting in this context that there is no similar flow of propagandistic images coming from the Israeli side of the border. That's because one side -- the democratically elected government of Israel -- views death as a tragedy and the other -- the Iranian financed terrorist organization Hezbollah -- sees it as an opportunity. In this case, turning their own dead children into material creates an opportunity to cloud the fact that every Lebanese casualty, tragic as he or she is, was killed or injured as an unavoidable consequence of Israel's pursuit of terrorists who use their own people as human shields. Every Israeli civilian killed or injured was the victim of a terrorist attack intended to harm civilians. That alone ought to wash away any blood-stained suggestion of moral equivalency.
from Time.com
Much ado has been made of Time's announcement yesterday that the magazine will be switching publication date from Monday to Friday. It's the first bit switch under new Time managing editor Richard Stengel , who called the switch "a big, interesting, bold way to go." Said Stengel: "Friday is when people are receptive and are buying and it's when you start the national conversation for people and for the Sunday talk shows. By Monday, the conversation has started without you."
Time's arch-rival Newsweek publishes on Mondays (both magazines would typically publish material to the web on Sunday mornings). A spokeswoman for the magazine had this carefully-crafted comment for Eat The Press:
"We've explored and will continue to evaluate publishing cycles. For now, we will continue to publish on the current cycle and prepare our readers for the week ahead. The current cycle also gives us the ability to dominate the conversation for Sunday's news programs versus our competition."
Upshot: Expect to see representatives from both magazines on the Sunday morning talk shows.
As it turns out, the Time announcement was foreshadowd by a column by Marketwatch's Jon Friedman which suggested that the newsweekly publish before the weekend. This no doubt means that Gawker will be nicer soon.
from CNN.com
Is there anything about the JonBenet Ramsey case that isn't weird and disturbing? From the weird litte-girl pageant culture it revealed to the horror of the actual crime to the fact that it was never solved (pretty incredibly, considering that she was found dead in her own home) to the sudden decade-later arrest and confession of the supposed killer — who now, as it turns out, might just be a deranged weirdo as opposed to the deranged weirdo. The whole thing is nuts.
E&P traces the developments over just the last day and a half, from the blindsiding, talk-show-guest-bumping breaking news that an arrest had been made to the suggestion that, wait, maybe this guy is just an obsessive deluded weirdo confessing to a crime he didn't actually commit (not to mention the sudden alibi provided by his ex-wife that he was actually in Alabama at the time of the murder. Oh, ex-wives. They're always trying to screw you.) Slate's Jack Shafer doesn't think the press need apologize for its scrutiny, given the aforementioned weirdness of the crime, the bungling police investigation, and the fact that the Ramseys were very open about talking to the press (but if JonBenet was found in the basement of their home, they're declaration that they were top suspects shouldn't really have been that surprising, anyway). Even so, now that there's a new generation of newsies to distance themselves from the coverage, that's exactly what they're doing: see Jake Tapper on ABCNews.com ("I hope the media and authorities are looking long and hard at their own shameful behavior in this whole affair"). As Jon Stewart said last night, the media is "distancing itself...from itself."
E&P suggests that the press has made a "rush to judgment" here but I actually disagree. As I see it, the case has been reported as it has developed, which has been a huge boon to ongoing coverage because there really have been new developments (see ratings spike here). (And it's not like the authorities in Thailand have been agitating for privacy: Between the press conference and showy, let's-get-this-suspect-in-front-of-the-cameras-from-every-angle perp walk, they've obviously been relishing the attention (I noted in my coverage yesterday morning that Chief of Thai Immigration police Gen. Suwat Thamrongsrisakul seemed inappropriately cheery at the press conference — I guess this was good PR for him).
But — and in the 24-hour news cycle there's always a but — the general consensus seems to be that the cable nets are flogging this to the max. A reader writes: "Watching yesterday, I think it took CNN 20 minutes even to include a reference in the crawl to the NSA warrantless wiretapping program being declared unconstitutional ...." and over at TVNewser, Brian Stelter comments that MSNBC went "overboard" on the coverage. No surprise that other news is being elbowed out of the way; Stewart expressed it with typical dead-on pith thusly regarding the "Algebra of Cable News": "Three year war in Iraq is less than the 30-day-old bombing of Lebanon, which is less than the explosive Gatorade on a plane — all of which is, apparently, chicken[bleep] next to break in the ten-year-old murder case." The Daily Show had a typical video montage of cable net talking heads, but missed the true gotcha moment as far as I'm concerned: The classy JonBenet graveyard location shots, courtesy of Fox and MSNBC. I mean, ew.
Most useful thing I've seen on the JonBenet case, by far: Over at Poynter, Al Tompkins has a great round-up of all the angles on the story, heavily linked and offering a great, broad, and lucid perspective. Yes, that's a great, broad and lucid perspective on the JonBenet Ramsey case.
ETP's computer has been irascible this morning but we'll be with you shortly, ish. How much do you miss us? We know, we know.
Harry Shearer
EDINBURGh--Apropos of my post earlier this week about the paucity of volunteer psychological services for the heavily traumatized population of New Orleans, today's T-P reports that FEMA is announcing a grant for a counseling service that includes no doctors. Adding insult, the grant--for a city that was 80% flooded by federal negligence--is less than a quarter of the similar grant the agency announced for New York in the wake of 9/11, a disaster that...
Harry Shearer
EDINBURGH--Thursday's NYT ran a story the lede of which was newsworthy enough, perhaps:
The number of roadside bombs planted in Iraq rose in July to the highest monthly total of the war, offering more evidence that the anti-American insurgency has continued to strengthen despite the killing of the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Of course, as Donald Rumsfeld likes to say, those are only numbers. And you can only use the...
