The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

After Two Blog Posts, She Was Contacted by Five Literary Agents and . . .

Posted on | August 8, 2010 | 57 Comments

. . . now has less traffic per month than I get in an average week, and yet is deemed so popular that she’s scheduled to appear later this month on The Today Show. Novelist Theodore Beale is also pissed:

I happen to notice that my own little blog appears to have had 208,595 visitors last month, in addition to another 46,376 monthly Feedburner subscribers. According to Blogger, I have written 8,376 posts, which if my math is correct suggests that I should have been contacted by an estimated 177,969 literary agents by now. And yet, despite having published five novels, three graphic novels, and two non-fiction books, I have never, ever been contacted by one. Or, come to think of it, by the Today Show either. How highly peculiar!

Since the late 1950s at least, authors have been divided into four categories:

  1. Those who are already famous enough that merely putting their name and photo on the cover of a book would guarantee commercial success;
  2. Those who, while currently not famous, are sufficiently telegenic that they might get booked on national TV;
  3. Those whose work could conceivably be made into a blockbuster movie; and
  4. Those who are treated like scum.

Once television became the dominant venue for selling books, certain further consequences were predictable, including the Justin Bieber memoir. And while much of the publishing world has surrendered to the “Oprah Syndrome” (whereby publishers try to pick books and authors based on their prospects of catching Oprah Winfrey’s attention), conservative book publishing is nowadays controlled by the Fox Syndrome, based on the likelihood of the author getting booked on “The O’Reilly Factor” or getting mentioned by Glenn Beck.

Speaking of Glenn Beck, for example, let me ask readers who’ve got their copy of Donkey Cons (2006) handy to turn to page 149 and look at the last paragraph on the page:

The welfare explosion of the 1960s was the brainchild of a group of Columbia University professors, including Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward and crusading  New York anti-poverty lawyer Edward Sparer. They saw welfare as a means to shatter “patterns of servile conformity” among the poor, transforming them into a force for revolution.

Nowadays, Beck can’t step to the chalkboard without invoking the “Cloward-Piven Strategy,” which was first discussed on his show by my ACORN-busting friend Matthew Vadum:

Vadum’s first writing on the Cloward-Piven Strategy, so far as I’m aware, was in October 2008. You’ll see in the video clip that Beck quotes David Horowitz, who had written extensively about the Cloward-Piven Strategy, as had Horowitz’s colleague Richard Poe in 2005. However, the source I cited in writing on Cloward and Piven in Donkey Cons was Fred Siegel’s excellent 1997 book on urban policy, The Future Once Happened Here.

What I’m trying to get across here is that the Cloward-Piven Strategy was a well-documented phenomenon of left-wing ideology for decades. Yet Beck’s got a TV show and the rest of us don’t, so that’s the way that particular cookie crumbles in the modern world. There’s no point bitching about it.

As Ronald Reagan said, “You can accomplish much if you don’t care who gets the credit.” Or the book contracts or TV shows.

Life is not fair. Embrace the suck.

UPDATE: Instapundit embraces the suck. I should probably now advise you to buy An Army of Davids.

Category: Blogging, Books

Every Year in Texas . . .

Posted on | August 8, 2010 | 9 Comments

. . .  the state’s estimated 1.5 million illegal aliens become parents of 60,000 new babies who are automatically U.S. citizens.

When Republicans suggest this is a problem, they’re denounced as harboring “a desire to eviscerate the Constitution.”

Not only are our borders broken, but our political discourse isn’t exactly functioning smoothly, either.

UPDATE: “Scaring white people?”

Category: Immigration, Texas

Top Ten Reasons David Letterman’s Ratings Suck on the Forest Moon of Endor

Posted on | August 8, 2010 | 35 Comments

“Broken-Down Old Man Perving on Zooey Deschanel” really seems to bother Ace of Spades. 

Read more

Category: Ace of Spades, Celebrities, humor, Sex

Is This True?

Posted on | August 8, 2010 | 26 Comments

“Even when liberal girls start out pretty, they rapidly end up making hags of themselves. There’s something about being angry and self-righteous all the time that seems to warp a woman’s face as well as her soul.”
— Vox Day

Category: Feminism, Rule 5

Unfortunately, Not an Onion Parody

Posted on | August 8, 2010 | 22 Comments

US court denies parents
custody of Hitler and sisters
A US appeals court has ruled a couple who gave their children Nazi-inspired names should not regain custody, citing the risk of serious injury to them.
Adolf Hitler Campbell, 4, and his sisters, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation, 3, and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie, 2, were taken from their New Jersey home in 2009.
The case first came to public attention in December 2008 after a shop refused to decorate a birthday cake for Adolf. . . .

Allow me to suggest that (a) if the Campbells were truly the Nordic Übermenschen they claim to be, maybe they’d be able to decorate their own kid’s birthday cake at home; and (b) if the name “Hitler Campbell” bothers you, how do you feel about the names “Russia” and “Kenyatta”?

Category: Racism

Great Moments In Inattention To Detail

Posted on | August 8, 2010 | 14 Comments

by Smitty

Smitty:  Stacy, look! We’re number 3 on Wikio!
 
Stacy: Smittiot! That’s not a Roman numeral!

Thanks to our readers, commenters, and fellow patriots. We’d love to do Technorati, too, but somehow our hosting provider doesn’t let our robots.txt file do the right thing.

Category: humor

Female Reporter Claims Brett Favre Sent Her Photos of Himself Masturbating

Posted on | August 8, 2010 | 45 Comments

TV sports personality Jenn Sterger says NFL quarterback Brett Favre sent her cell-phone photos of himself masturbating in 2008, according to a report at the blog Deadspin.

The startling allegations about Favre — a married father of two whose first grandchild was born in April — have threatened to overshadow recent reports that the 11-time Pro Bowl quarterback is finally ready to retire at age 40.

Sterger, a 27-year-old former Florida State University cheerleader who parlayed her surgically enhanced figure into a career as a sports commentator, was hired in 2008 as a host for the New York Jets’ “Gameday” pre-game TV program. She appeared in Maxim and Playboy and wrote a Sports Illustrated column.

According to Deadspin’s A.J. Dauleiro, Sterger said “Favre first began to call her early in the season and leave strange, friendly messages on her voicemail.” While the messages were at first merely friendly, Favre’s calls later “started to turn weird . . . flirty and strange,” Daulerio wrote in a report published Thursday at Deadspin, a sports site that is part of the Gawker Media network.

“Sterger claimed she spurned Favre’s advances because he was married, but also because she was working for the Jets at the time she didn’t think it was the best idea to start a torrid affair with the team’s highest profile player,” Daulerio reported, and Sterger didn’t want to complain for fear “she might lose her job.” Eventually, however, Favre began sending her pornographic photos of himself:

But then, one night, Sterger received a picture on her phone which was so shocking that she just tossed it across the room. It was his [penis]. Brett Favre’s [penis]. And it happened multiple times. In fact, Sterger claims that, in one of the photos Favre allegedly sent her, he’s masturbating — while wearing a pair of Crocs. In another photo, Favre is holding his penis while wearing the wristwatch he wore during his first teary-eyed retirement press conference.

Daulerio said Sterger was reluctant to be named in the Deadspin report but wanted “to expose this dude for the creepy douche he is.” In an e-mail to Daulerio, Sterger wrote: “I just want to make it clear I never met him, saw him, etc. . . . because I don’t roll that way. That way meaning old . . . or married. Some big boobed hoes have morals and souls believe it or not.”

As Green Bay’s starting quarterback for 16 seasons, Favre led the Packers to victory in Super Bowl XXXI. He holds many NFL records, including most most career touchdown passes and most career passing yards. His personal life has been marred by several tragedies. In 2003, Favre started a Monday night game against the Oakland Raiders the day after his father died, and threw for nearly 400 yards in a 41-7 victory. In 1996, he was treated for addiction to prescription painkillers. In 2004, his brother-in-law was killed in an accident and his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.

* * * * * *

I wrote that in straight-news style because Deadspin’s A.J. Daulerio writes like a damned blogger. Excuse me for using that as a pejorative expression, but this is becoming a problem that needs to be addressed.

OK, when you’re just snarking on the headlines — stuff previously reported by regular news organizations — you can write any way you please and nobody cares. However, when you are doing first-source original reporting, or aggregating news in a way that aspires to be taken seriously, it is important to write clearly and concisely. 

The straight-faced Joe Friday “just-the-facts-ma’am” style of writing works because it conveys authority. If the story is truly newsworthy and you’ve got your facts nailed down cold, there’s no need to tart it up and make it clever or sensational. There was certainly no need for Daulerio to write this kind of story with the gossipy Perez Hilton-style lede he used:

Here’s another reason Brett Favre should stay retired this time: Turns out The Daily Line’s Jenn Sterger has kept a ridiculously disturbing (but HILARIOUS) secret about her interactions with The Gunslinger while they were both part of the Jets organization.

If it is a serious story — and these kind of accusations against a married sports star certainly are serious — then it deserves to be reported in a serious way. Dial down the snark, avoid loaded labels and sensationalism, and try to play it straight.

Knowing that my friends in the blogosphere may resent this advice, I’ll add that this is an argument I often had as a desk editor working with professional news reporters who, when they got a really juicy scoop, would yield to similar temptation. Despite having garnered a reputation as an ideological hatchet-man during my decade at The Washington Times, there were actually several times when I’d be the guy taking out loaded phrases (“left-wing,” etc.) from news stories. The bigger the story, the more important it is to report it with that objective Joe Friday style.

Blogging is a form of journalism and, at its best, blogging can have as much credibility and impact as the New York Times. There’s no reason why bloggers should limit their effectiveness by always writing in “snarktastic” mode. You’ll notice, for example, that Dan Riehl uses a different style of writing when he’s doing actual reporting than when he’s just linking and commenting.

Having worn many hats over the course of a quarter-century — music critic, news reporter, sports editor, columnist, feature writer, news editor, blogger — I have never felt that versatility was a detriment in journalism. The emerging reality of the New Media environment, where downsized news organization are working with smaller staffs and waging a 24/7 competition for “eyes” involving every SOB with a Blogspot site, makes versatility more crucial than ever.

The ability to switch from opinionated snark-slinger to Mr. Neutral Objectivity on a moment’s notice will, I predict, become recognized as a necessary skill in 21st-century journalism. And I also predict that Brett Favre will become sports columnist for The American Prospect.

UPDATE: If Dave Weigel’s comment section is like sex, maybe Jenn Sterger and Brett Favre belong there.

UPDATE II: Another temptation to be resisted: The idea that you have a snarktastic monopoly on saying everything funny or clever. In this case, I must defer to Doug Powers and Cubachi:




UPDATE III: Professor Donald Douglas at American Power scores big: First, as befitting Rule 5 Sunday, he’s got video of Jenn Sterger’s Maxim photo shoot and, second, he reminds us that A.J. Dauleiro was the guy who first linked the notorious Erin Andrews peephole video.

Professor Douglas also notes that CBS News is now reporting the Sterger-Favre scandal. Given that this is opening day of NFL pre-season, I can’t believe the Ace of Spades HQ crew has missed this story, but I didn’t see it on a quick scan.

UPDATE IV: “I can see the court testimony now . . . ‘Yer honor, that’s not mine!’ ‘Prove it Mr. Favre.’ “

UPDATE V: Linked at The Lonely Conservative.

UPDATE VI: “And all because he wanted an excuse to post a pseudo-naked picture of the Seminole-cheering eye-candy turned Playboy-model sideline reporter” — obviously, Troglopundit doesn’t appreciate Neutral Objective Journalism.

UPDATE VII: Welcome, Riehl World View readers! And Dan Collins blames it all on Favre’s abandonment of cheese.

Category: Neutral Objective Journalism, Scandal, Sex, Sports

Rule 5 Sunday

Posted on | August 8, 2010 | 18 Comments

by Smitty

Rule 5 Sunday dawns again. We look in the Rule 5 label and see what sort of delights await.

I think Kimberly Freeman of One Eyed Doll has some real talent. Thanks, GSGF!

Apropos nothing:

And now for a bit of beauty sleep for your humble aggregator. Stay awesome, and don’t forget Ten Buck Fridays!

Category: Rule 5
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