Wednesday, August 11, 2004
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... Headlines?!
How long has it been since I've done one of these? It just may be longer still until I have enough spare cash to be able to spend time on the computer at Maui's Smoothies, browsing around newsmap looking for news stories to make silly comments about, so let's make this one count, dadgumit.
1. Xinhuanet : English : Separated Filipino twins in good condition
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-08/11/content_1759274.htm
My god.
But I mean that in a good way! Well, mostly...
We live in age in which conjoined twins, connected at the head as if they had some horrifying adventure in Funhouse Mirrorland, can be detached from each other. And, afterwards, be in a condition that can be described by someone, anyone at all, as "good." And that is the happy occurrence this simultaneously wonderful and disturbing article has to report.
Say what you want about the corrupting influences of civilization, about the tendency of individuality to be lost in a sea of groupthink and corporate coercion, about the escalating tendency of human beings to feel overwhelmed by their environment, but there are still some things, a small but important number of things, that rock. We may not yet have flying cars, robo-maids, or an English translation of Sega Virtua-Hooker, but I'd say this still indicates that, yes Virginia, we are living in Jetson-land.
2. IndiaTimes : Economic Times : International Business : Trump just got fired, but he also got a raise
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/811236.cms
(Original source: Reuters)
Donald Trump has two messages to himself as he looks to reorganize his debt-laden casino empire. First, “you’re fired” and second, “you’ve got a raise”, according to a federal filing on Tuesday.
The first is the catch phrase he uses as the star of the hit reality TV series The Apprentice.
Until recently I haven't had access to the wonders of satellite television, so I've never seen The Apprentice. So allow me a moment to push my brain back up through my left nostril, through which it squirted when I discovered there was a show in which A. Trump played a role, B. his catch phrase is "You're fired," and C. is a hit.
Prepare yourselves as I'm ramping this up into boldface: HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?! Is it the damn 80s all over again? Are groups of frat guys sitting around the communal TV, going "Woo-hoo!" whenever Trump sacks somebody? Do we now exult as a species when a poor schmo gets the axe from one of the richest bastards - BASTARDS - in the world? Wait I forgot, we're living in the era of the "reality" show, where malevolent producers cook up a stinking simulacra of real life, weak in compassion and kindness but rich in the kind of veiled, pseudo-Darwinian, survival-of-the-fittest propaganda that makes it perfectly okay, in too many worldviews, for one to do a flamboyant fandango all over the hopes and dreams of others, for the simple reason that they can, and can eek some cents out of it. That's not entertainment, it's propaganda.
And could there be even one person remaining in this world who believes in that moldy fiction, the American Dream, and thinks that with hard work and shrewd business sense that they could someday catapult themselves onto Trump's pedestal without liberal application of at least one of those two ancient, all-purpose salves, Extreme Luck and Shady Business Practices? If your ticket to success is printed with the name of a reality show, then I hate to break it to you, but this is not a viable path to success that anyone except the one-in-six-million who get on those shows.
I decided to learn more about this show, and Google'd up NBC's web site for The Apprentice. For a hoot, boys and girls, have a look at the site's bio for show host and Executive Producer Donald Trump. It scrolls on and on, detailing in lavishing, worshiping prose every damn erection Trump's bought or built and stamped his ludicrous name upon. That, ultimately, is why Trump's involved with this show, why he'd condescend to be involved with it, when on the big roster of his profitable endeavors this has got to rank at least twenty places beneath his friggin' casinos.
Reading about the show's premise, this is what it looks like to me. Please, someone whose seen the show, correct me if I'm wrong. Donald Trump and "trusted colleagues" George Ross and Carolyn Kepcher round up a bunch of people who applied to be on the show, make them perform annoying, difficult tasks with each other, then decide among themselves which of the lot has demeaned himself the least by slavishly doing precisely what he's been told. At the end of the series, the remaining applicant gets hired by Trump Enterprises and gets a quick "in" to the notoriously insular world of corporate management.
Oh, sign me up for the upcoming DVD release of that.
3. Internetnews.com : Google Auction Immient
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3393411
It's about bloody time!
Months and months we've heard about the IPO, how it's going to be a "Dutch Auction," and how Wall Street hates its guts, hates it it does.
I love Google as much as anybody, but c'mon, sell it already! Oh, notice how Yahoo! managed to finagle itself some real cheap shares, for the price of lawyers and a patent application really, by using one of those highly-questionable software patent thingies to threaten Goog into giving them a cut. Yippie.
4. E! Online News: Mike "Rowdy" Wallace Busted
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,14694,00.html?tnews
Man oh man, is this ever going to sting around the doughnut table. "Hey 'Rowdy,' attack any cops lately?" Imagine losing all your arguments with Andy Rooney when he drags out the chestnut, for the nth time, "At least I've never been in jail." I figure it'll be around the twentieth time that happens that 86-year-old Mike'll snap, and show Mr. Rooney a bit of the fightin' style that got him put in the slammer in the first place, to the cheers of harried secretaries and interns throughout the office.
Seriously, c'mon now. Mike Wallace did not "lunge" at a city inspector. If he did, then the inspector should have just stepped out of the way of the elderly telejournalist's murderous grip and continued doing his job. Even if he was "overly assertive and disrespectful," is that really sufficient cause to throw someone in the pokey?
But still, whoever woulda thought that Mike Wallace would one day be brought in by the man? I hope we get a juicy expose on this all over CBS prime time, serve 'em right. Let's see that inspector on the business end of a 60 Minutes interview. It'd be a hell of a lot more interesting to me than whatever antics Donald Trump's cooked up this week.
How long has it been since I've done one of these? It just may be longer still until I have enough spare cash to be able to spend time on the computer at Maui's Smoothies, browsing around newsmap looking for news stories to make silly comments about, so let's make this one count, dadgumit.
1. Xinhuanet : English : Separated Filipino twins in good condition
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-08/11/content_1759274.htm
My god.
But I mean that in a good way! Well, mostly...
We live in age in which conjoined twins, connected at the head as if they had some horrifying adventure in Funhouse Mirrorland, can be detached from each other. And, afterwards, be in a condition that can be described by someone, anyone at all, as "good." And that is the happy occurrence this simultaneously wonderful and disturbing article has to report.
Say what you want about the corrupting influences of civilization, about the tendency of individuality to be lost in a sea of groupthink and corporate coercion, about the escalating tendency of human beings to feel overwhelmed by their environment, but there are still some things, a small but important number of things, that rock. We may not yet have flying cars, robo-maids, or an English translation of Sega Virtua-Hooker, but I'd say this still indicates that, yes Virginia, we are living in Jetson-land.
2. IndiaTimes : Economic Times : International Business : Trump just got fired, but he also got a raise
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/811236.cms
(Original source: Reuters)
Donald Trump has two messages to himself as he looks to reorganize his debt-laden casino empire. First, “you’re fired” and second, “you’ve got a raise”, according to a federal filing on Tuesday.
The first is the catch phrase he uses as the star of the hit reality TV series The Apprentice.
Until recently I haven't had access to the wonders of satellite television, so I've never seen The Apprentice. So allow me a moment to push my brain back up through my left nostril, through which it squirted when I discovered there was a show in which A. Trump played a role, B. his catch phrase is "You're fired," and C. is a hit.
Prepare yourselves as I'm ramping this up into boldface: HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?! Is it the damn 80s all over again? Are groups of frat guys sitting around the communal TV, going "Woo-hoo!" whenever Trump sacks somebody? Do we now exult as a species when a poor schmo gets the axe from one of the richest bastards - BASTARDS - in the world? Wait I forgot, we're living in the era of the "reality" show, where malevolent producers cook up a stinking simulacra of real life, weak in compassion and kindness but rich in the kind of veiled, pseudo-Darwinian, survival-of-the-fittest propaganda that makes it perfectly okay, in too many worldviews, for one to do a flamboyant fandango all over the hopes and dreams of others, for the simple reason that they can, and can eek some cents out of it. That's not entertainment, it's propaganda.
And could there be even one person remaining in this world who believes in that moldy fiction, the American Dream, and thinks that with hard work and shrewd business sense that they could someday catapult themselves onto Trump's pedestal without liberal application of at least one of those two ancient, all-purpose salves, Extreme Luck and Shady Business Practices? If your ticket to success is printed with the name of a reality show, then I hate to break it to you, but this is not a viable path to success that anyone except the one-in-six-million who get on those shows.
I decided to learn more about this show, and Google'd up NBC's web site for The Apprentice. For a hoot, boys and girls, have a look at the site's bio for show host and Executive Producer Donald Trump. It scrolls on and on, detailing in lavishing, worshiping prose every damn erection Trump's bought or built and stamped his ludicrous name upon. That, ultimately, is why Trump's involved with this show, why he'd condescend to be involved with it, when on the big roster of his profitable endeavors this has got to rank at least twenty places beneath his friggin' casinos.
Reading about the show's premise, this is what it looks like to me. Please, someone whose seen the show, correct me if I'm wrong. Donald Trump and "trusted colleagues" George Ross and Carolyn Kepcher round up a bunch of people who applied to be on the show, make them perform annoying, difficult tasks with each other, then decide among themselves which of the lot has demeaned himself the least by slavishly doing precisely what he's been told. At the end of the series, the remaining applicant gets hired by Trump Enterprises and gets a quick "in" to the notoriously insular world of corporate management.
Oh, sign me up for the upcoming DVD release of that.
3. Internetnews.com : Google Auction Immient
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3393411
It's about bloody time!
Months and months we've heard about the IPO, how it's going to be a "Dutch Auction," and how Wall Street hates its guts, hates it it does.
I love Google as much as anybody, but c'mon, sell it already! Oh, notice how Yahoo! managed to finagle itself some real cheap shares, for the price of lawyers and a patent application really, by using one of those highly-questionable software patent thingies to threaten Goog into giving them a cut. Yippie.
4. E! Online News: Mike "Rowdy" Wallace Busted
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,14694,00.html?tnews
Man oh man, is this ever going to sting around the doughnut table. "Hey 'Rowdy,' attack any cops lately?" Imagine losing all your arguments with Andy Rooney when he drags out the chestnut, for the nth time, "At least I've never been in jail." I figure it'll be around the twentieth time that happens that 86-year-old Mike'll snap, and show Mr. Rooney a bit of the fightin' style that got him put in the slammer in the first place, to the cheers of harried secretaries and interns throughout the office.
Seriously, c'mon now. Mike Wallace did not "lunge" at a city inspector. If he did, then the inspector should have just stepped out of the way of the elderly telejournalist's murderous grip and continued doing his job. Even if he was "overly assertive and disrespectful," is that really sufficient cause to throw someone in the pokey?
But still, whoever woulda thought that Mike Wallace would one day be brought in by the man? I hope we get a juicy expose on this all over CBS prime time, serve 'em right. Let's see that inspector on the business end of a 60 Minutes interview. It'd be a hell of a lot more interesting to me than whatever antics Donald Trump's cooked up this week.
