Only the Hairdresser Knows for Sure
Right, Left, or Center? We report -- you decide.
I had demanded the negatives be seized and destroyed, but to no avail.
Just one of many pix coming out of the party the other night at Arianna's offered by Huffpost and Yahoo! for Gawker's Defamer.
John Amato from CrooksandLiars, Arianna, moi, and Hi Ho Ron Silver.
Meanwhile, the former Pajamas now OSM launch of which I'm part is still trying to right itself before it comes crashing down on our heads. Contrary to hysterical predictions from full-time Internet Liberals, OSM proved to be anything but a steam-roller, NeoCon wehrmacht. On the contrary, apart from a certain palpable political pluralism, it looks more like the Keystone Kops. Turns out that bloggers are bloggers and not great strategic geniuses, so we'll see. Meanwhile, there's this very good parody of the operation. I particularly love the chart of the business model.
November 18th, 2005 at 8:54 pm
Ann Coulter wasn’t with Ron?
November 18th, 2005 at 9:47 pm
Have you shrunk, or are those guys just really tall?
Anyway, as regards OSM, it is a right wing project. Simply peruse the 70 OSM blogs, check the make up of the Editoral Advisory Board (you and David Corn excepted), check the blogs of its founders, and note that Corn was the lone liberal at the OSM launch. And where is the $3.5 million from? Not from the liberal left sources I suspect. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
But it looks even clearer now the people behind it are right wingers without business sense, a clear plan. It’s not a train wreck yet, but its heading rapidly in that direction, as predicted.
To avoid that they need to rapidly complete a big shake up, including changing their name which is misleading, to put it mildly.
But in one sense OSM is inclusive and bi-partisan; anybody stumbling across the OSM website today – be they from the left, right or centre – will find the thing an embarrassment.
November 18th, 2005 at 9:57 pm
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Benjamin, plse dont “inform” me of who is financing and running a project Im actually part of, OK?
In fact, if you look at the material that has ben put up on OSM the first few days, the tilt was actually center-center/left with prominent pieces by me, David Corn and links to KoS and TPM among other liberal sites.
The he who pays the piper formula is about as primitive and boneheaded as you can be when it comes to media. I trash the very corporate LA Times all day and night publicly and still write for them on a regular basis. I worked at the Village Voice and did whatever I wanted when RUPERT MURDOCH owned it.
The danger that OSM is flirting with right now is from a LACK OF CONTENT. Not from a surfeit of rightwing material.
Anyway, this is an exhausting and fruitless discussion because it is driven purely by ideology and not reality. It’s the same sickness the Bush White House suffers but clearly with no monopoly.
As to the picture… yes.. they are THAT tall and I am THAT short.. about 5′ 3″. Arianna tops out at 6 feet.
November 18th, 2005 at 10:13 pm
My only piece of advice to Marc vis-a-vis OSM is what Richard Belzer told Sam Kinison during the first Gulf War, when Kinison’s fans wanted jokes about “nukng” the “towelheads.” Belzer said, “Either educate your audience or leave them.”
November 18th, 2005 at 10:36 pm
Marc
I did not inform you about who its financiers were. We are not told in detail. I did not mention them by name. I simply said I suspected they were not from the liberal left.
He who pays the piper calls the tune… to an extent. It depends how much slack they want to give, and what sort of proprietor or group of people own the media enterprise. But ownership is about power too, and that makes a difference.
Don’t get too stressed about it. I am not here to have big argument with you about it.
November 18th, 2005 at 10:45 pm
Marc
I think Murdoch does use parts of his global media enterprise in clearly direct and political ways, such as his use of the Sun newspaper in the UK. But its not uniform across the board. But when he wants to he can and does – and that’s the point.
Contrast that to the set up of the UK’s Guardian newspaper. It’s still corporate, but a different structure.
November 18th, 2005 at 10:53 pm
BTW the reason I mentioned the height thing is my girlfriend is a tiny thing – only about 5 feet tall – and I am 5′ 11″!! (So your group photo reminded me of that.)
You can imagine the pictures of us two!
November 18th, 2005 at 11:08 pm
Ron Silver ?? Not sure who that is. Was he on West Wing??
I thought Marc was hanging out with his good buddy, William Shakespeare.
Is this Silver guy sucking in his stomach for the pix ? Sure looks like it.
November 19th, 2005 at 12:38 am
Marc, you’ve reminded me of what I miss most since the Great Makeover: a headshot of your ugly mug. Ever since, I’ve wondered if I’m not just commenting at the site of some media corporation of the same name. Any way to get it back?
November 19th, 2005 at 1:04 am
If the masses beg me I MIGHT reconsider.
November 19th, 2005 at 6:39 am
Marc – Here’s a couple of quick takes on Open Pajamas that strike me as some combination of odd and disturbing (assuming the thing is supposed to be taken seriously.) This isn’t anything other than a “consumer report”. On the Murtha brouhaha, their first link is to Brietbart.com with the note “Brietbart reports” – what Brietbart reports is a reprint of an AP story. That’s it. If that’s their idea of the first bit of blogging they draw your attention to, it rather makes the whole underlying premise of the enterprise, shall we say, ludicrous. Then on the blogroll, the links don’t work. Choose one of the Top 25 – click – nothing. Perhaps these links work on a PC loaded with Gatesware – I don’t know. Never will. Don’t care. Then in the news roundup, the overwhelming majority of links are to Xinhua news agency. Perhaps the prevalence of PRC news reports is to provide the political balance that’s not evident in their blogroll. Maybe Xinhua’s a wonderful news agency. Just seems weird. Again, I don’t know and don’t much care, but there you have it. Links that don’t work to people I mostly don’t want to read anyway and a “news roundup” that only an idiot who never heard of Google News would see as worth the pixels it’s printed on. Then there’s ONE original bit of content – or at least a promise of one – which is an appeal to all of these bloggers write to stuff on the same topic (WMD intel) and they’ll compile it all when it actually happens. The brilliant thing about this is that it’s called Blogjam…which is what it will probably turn out to be and which, like Logjams and Trafficjams, sensible people will go out of their way to avoid.
Also, the graphics are astonishingly weak for an operation that isn’t run off some lone stranger’s laptop. Or is it? Actually, it’s weak even if it is run off some lone stranger’s laptop. Most people using Blogspot as their platform have better looking sites. I’m kind of astounded that they went to all of this hoopla and this bit of blah is what’s on offer.
As I’ve said, sadly, about BushCo, the key players behind Open Pajamas (Mavis’ TM) have sunk to the depths of EVEN DISAPPOINTING A CARPING, SKEPTICAL, DON’T-GIVE-A-DAMN-ABOUT-YOU-OR-YOUR-MAMA, HATE-YOUR-FUCKING-RIGHTWING-POLITICS SHIT LIKE ME. That’s a very bad beginning.
November 19th, 2005 at 10:05 am
That link to OSM doesn’t work. I’ve never even seen the thing to know what content is there or not.
November 19th, 2005 at 6:09 pm
http://osm.org/ I got it from Simon’s. I see they have a homepage where the usual suspects are featured.
November 19th, 2005 at 11:32 pm
OSM Part XVIIIIII
Hey, that guy commented on Pererro, maybe. I’m instinctually very suspicious of someone with any sort commenting on the Pere, but you never know. But anyway, happy with the sentiments laid out here.
November 20th, 2005 at 1:40 pm
Noted the first four or fives “Headlines” were from the official Chinese News Agency. Commie News? Is that where the money came from? Ah yes – The Manchurian News Blog!
November 22nd, 2005 at 6:43 am
Marc, maybe you can spice up OSM with some fishing articles.
January 17th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
Great post! I’m looking forward for more. Tremendous Gnome becomes Central Boy in final: http://www.detnews.com/ , right Stake will Destroy Stake without any questions Black is feature of Black Corner , Greedy, Bad, Green nothing comparative to Small Lazy, Full, Bad nothing comparative to Astonishing
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January 21st, 2011 at 9:25 am
Dumb kid crowd surfing kicked my arm and it still hurts. I bet im gonna wake up with bruises all over
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