Zell Hell: Mission Accomplished!
If you happen to be passing through downtown Los Angeles and you swing by the
intersection of Second and Spring, you’ll notice a blood-staned banner hanging from atop the L.A. Times building reading “Mission Accomplished.”
Potty-mouthed billionaire junk yard operator Sam Zell has pretty much finished the hatchet job on the local newspaper. All papers are in some state or another of crisis, but this has to be a world record in the fastest trashing ever of a major publication. You can read about today’s bloody developments here, here, here, here, here and here.
As the heads were rolling today, I had lunch with an old high school chum I hadn’t seen since 1968. He told me a great, related story. Until a year ago, he had worked the previous two decades in a high-profile post for a Very Big Corporation. When mgmt shifted last year and things started gettng nutty, my friend made a desperate and bold run for the door. A fiftysomething with a home, family, and lucrative career, he bagged it to go freelance.
Fortunately, things have worked out and he’s done well this past year on his own. Anyway, in his old job he knew a lot of journos. He told me today that in the last few weeks at least three veteran reporters or editors of the L.A. Times he knows came to see him — informally– ‘cuz they wanted his counsel. Like, was it really possible to be 50 years old (or more), walk away from the corporate teat and actually survive? They wanted to know how he’s done it.
I know some of these same folks and they’re good and talented people. I have little doubt that post-L.A. Times they will find another (and more worthy) employer.
But there is, nevertheless, some pungent historic irony in this. A lot of my writer/reporter friends (including yours truly) came up the hard way i.e. mostly as freelance and/or independent writers. We had the freedom that came with independence but we also had the constant and sometimes nerve-wracking insecurity and uncertainty that came with it. You’d get some sort of super-duper magazine writing assignment for 10g’s and then figure out it was gonna take u 3 months to do it — and you didn’t know if another offer would follow.
There were certainly times, many times, as a younger man when I had my periods of great doubt and wondered if I wouldn’t had been better off taking a more traditional career path.
Now, I see that I — and others like me– were actually the lucky ones. Circumstances forced us to be entrepreneurial, to always be generating more work, diversifying our talents and seeking additional streams of income — just to make a living. We learned to live by our wits and take absolutely nothing for.
And now it’s those who matured inside the corporate journalism world who are more freaked out by the immediate future. When you work for 25 years at a place like the Times, when it’s more or less your only employer during your adult life, you have no friggin’ idea how to pitch a story, bag a book contract, or secure a writer’s agreement when the boss forces you out. You sort of get institutionalized, if not infantilized. It sucks.
July 15th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
So Marc, when’s your first motivational seminar? I’m ready to sign up!
July 15th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
In the van, down by the L.A. river, where Marc lives?
July 16th, 2008 at 9:26 am
I don’t really know the ins and outs of this story, but it seems like the story of every major city and its daily papers. Toronto is no exception, the media landscape for dailies in Canada makes some reporters even miss (!!!) Conrad Black, who was a thug, but at least respected the craft of journalism, compared with today’s Aspers and Bell Canada Enterprises.
But I think the real story here is this guy Zell’s classic folksinger beard.
July 16th, 2008 at 10:59 am
That’s fine Marc but not everyone has the entrepenurial spirit to freelance. And that wasn’t how it was done here. The RIMES may have been the “Velvet Coffin” but that was the way corporate America used to be. A little backround – see if you can find a copy of Willuam White’s “The Organization Man” which was a huge bestseller in the fifties.
Back then you joined a company and you stayed for life. AT&T had the ethos of the civil service, IBM never laid anyone off. And GM’s biggest problem was staying under 50% of the market and avoiding those nasty people from the anti-trust division.
Worked pretty well too. Then we got “TurboCapitalism” and risk shifting to the individual and look at us now! Really did a job on the Great American Middle Classes huh! Now payday advance stores are found in all the best neighborhoods.
Byt Sam will get some sucker to buy his useless rag after his stripped all the assets out and used OPM (thats “other people’s money) in doing it.
Quit your whining and get on board with Phil and Wendy and crony your way to fame and fortune. Its the new American way!
July 16th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Atlanta now joins L.A. and Chicago…Atlanta newspaper cutting staff by 200
If these lousy papers fired just a few lefties on the editorial board, they would be able to keep the rest of the employees, because much more of the public would buy the paper–at least for the coupons. Most around here won’t even do that because they are fed up with liberal, Democrat-owned and slanted paper and refuse to give them a dime.
July 16th, 2008 at 11:25 am
You mean that’s not Pete Seeger?
July 16th, 2008 at 11:38 am
It is…and he’s about to set fire to those dollar bills.
July 16th, 2008 at 11:45 am
How many stories did those now unemployed L.A. Times guys write about my older brother working in the Steel Mills, or me, who worked at the General Motors plant? The dumb asses should have know, sooner or later outsourcing, down-sizing, and globalization was going to put their ass out on the streets. Did they cry for me and my brother?
July 16th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Pete Seeger, huh? I thought that little Zell guy was my missing garden gnome.
July 16th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Die Gedanken Sind Frei indeed
July 16th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
The future of the L.A. Times…stories that people want, with a special slide show at the bottom:
Scattered, smothered, covered and hitched
Couple marries at Waffle House
July 16th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Bravo Marc!
You make an excellent point about the free-lance life. It’s an extended ordeal that either kills you — as in you find new career or retreat into the bosom of a corporation — or makes you stronger.
Someone joked about you starting a motivational seminar, but it’s not a half bad idea. Sure, there are resources out there on “how to transition from staff to free-lance” but I doubt many have the insight that you could bring to the subject, specifically for journalism in the post-Bush era.
With apologies to REM: It’s the end of the Times as we know it, and I feel fine.
And…
Zell’s a hard guy to like, but let’s be sure to understand that he only shares a small part of the blame for the Times’ comeuppance, which has been brewing for many, many years. He’s more like the guy left holding the bag. Just because he’s a billionaire doesn’t mean he’s not taking it on the chin here. Maybe he won’t have to miss any meals over it, but you can be sure his business empire is headed south on a high wind, directly away from glory and conquest.
As noted, many a paper Zell has nothing to do with is now sinking in similar straits. It’s a new world order of journalism.
And Woody, if “most people” around Atlanta don’t like the cut of the Journal-Constitution’s editorial jib, where’s the newspaper that they do like? Are they too dumb, too lazy or too poor to start one?
Truth is, your ilk will never have a major metro newspaper that’s “on your side,” because your ideology inevitably experiences the reporting of fact as an affront.
It’s the talkradio, Fox Circus Clowns and wingnut welfare think-thank/magazine circuit for you guys, and always will be.
July 16th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
bunker, it takes tremendous capital to start a newspaper, and the return on investment is not good. However, another newspaper was started in Atlanta several years ago with a conservative slant. Guess what. The AJC bought them out and shut them down. Anti-trust regulations must not apply to newspapers. However, conservatives are doing quite well with talk radio, the internet, and FOX News.
July 16th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
A return on investment of 15 to 20 % is not bad.
July 16th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Woody when I travelled in the South I made a point to listen to every Waffle House song on their jukeboxes (for those not in the know, every single song on a Waffel House Jukebox is an advertisement for Waffle House, some with suggestive language about cute waitresses).
July 16th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Interesting. I suspect that if it was the Washington Times or NYPost or perhaps FNC going down no one here would be in the least upset. Infact, I can hear a few “god I hope so” from more than a few here.
It is almost as the left deserves a paper it can call it’s own and that new technology cannot dare cause it to have problems and that the majority of hacks that write for it just can’t survive on their own. And I don’t here very many voices for the inkmen, the secretarys the copyboys (or whatever they call them now) but about the poor journalists (They can always hire Mark York I guess). Hey, NOONE is guaranteed a job. If they can’t sell their writing freelance maybe they aren’t very good writers. If they are good, there will be a market for their work. But geeze, it isn’t owed to them. Maybe I’m mistaken and you guys aren’t saying that, but it has that flavor.
Marc is an exception. I’ve sold a few stories but I’d hate to try to make a living at it. I suspect that even Marc has felt that way from time to time; and he is Good!
July 16th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
“I’ve sold a few stories but I’d hate to try to make a living at it.”
Your writing stinks. I’m sorry I have to come off as crass here, but your last post cries out for it in its blind faux-competence and juvenile insulting tone. It kind of makes me feel embarrassed for you, but then I remember all the childish posts you make here, and my embarrassment converts into half-bored irritation. Honestly, you sound rather pathetic.
July 16th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Yeah, G.M., why can’t you sound more mature and intelligent like Kyle?
July 16th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
GM since they’re not really papers but vanity propaganda arms for an Aussie and the Korean CIA I couldn’t care less!
July 16th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
But, then again, where would the poor GOP operatives go to give and get their talking points (and, by extension, allow Mark Halperin a source!!)
July 16th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Pulling out the NY Post and the Washington Times – both of which are profitless and have been for years – in this discussion is funny as hell. (And to say they are “profitless” is kind, given that both papers lose tens of millions each year.) If a moderately liberal paper like the New York Times or the LA Times had been run for years as nothing but a vanity project by partisan influence-seekers (most especially a foreign crook and cult leader, like the Times owner) GMR and Woody would be shrieking to high Heaven about the perfidy of it all. GM’s right -there’s the smell of a double standard in these threads.
July 16th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
GM, you’re so needy to put this in a left-right system that you can’t see the issue for what it is.
The LAT is one of the few institutions in town that exposes (mis)deeds of pols and powerful appointees. Because of the way the system is rigged here, any measure of accountability is rare and much appreciated. Of course the LAT misses a lot, and they have their biases, but they did provide some oversight/insight. And even when they were following instead of leading on a story, they got some facts out there just because of their reach.
Given the way the wind is blowing at the LA Weekly — I’m referring to penny-ante muckraking — the loss is going to leave a big gap in the citywide investigative establishment.
If you must have a left-right angle, note that most of the pols who are breathing easier are Democrats.
And to twist the left-right setup a little more, Zell clearly styles himself some kind of radical. He’s actually just a dumbass (http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2008/07/abrams_rethink_book_revie.php) who doesn’t have a plan for digging out of a hole he bought his way into.
It’s like when uninformed people move into a modest, vintage bungalow and start “improving” it by removing all the existing fixtures and fittings. Sure, according to the rules, it’s their property to do with as they please, but that doesn’t stop everyone on the block from snickering or jeering, according to their disposition.
Why should a thinking “conservative” have any patience for such unthinking demolition of a worthwhile institution?
July 16th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
I had lunch today with a longtime Timesman, a very good one, who produces work I always respect, who is wondering about the future.
The LAT was, about a decade ago, a near great newspaper. It’s nowhere near that now.
And hasn’t been since early in this decade.
I know abstractly that the sharp decline of the Times is highly problematic. But in what I do, I find the Times easy to beat, despite its still relative extravaganza of corporate resources.
There’s more to say, but I’m running out of interest in the topic. I’ve written scores of op-ed pieces for the paper, but have never been either an idolator or a hater of the paper.
The current situation is a joke, of course. I used to know all about LAT editors-in-chief. This current fellow I wouldn’t know if he dropped through my skylight.
The ownership is preposterous, with a pseudo-publisher proud of signing Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaught to radio contracts.
But you already know that. Well, maybe not that part …
It’s obvious that if a civic leadership is not willing to step up to make a more marginal profit on newspaper ownership but have the responsibility to ensure some semblance of quality journalism, that that quality journalism will not exit, at least not in the current massive form so many have come to know.
And so it goes.
July 17th, 2008 at 4:00 am
Sorry Bill but “civic leadership” is the very last thing a newspaper needs.
What’s missing from the Times isn’t a sweetheart investor with millions to lose or reporters that start each day with instructions from the Republican National Committee or the Heritage Foundation or, certainly not, a consortium of upstanding citizens willing to extend their civic duties from raising money for Disney Hall to planning expensive fund-raising dinners for the Ahmanson Times, or whatever gazillionaire’s name it would end up with.
What the Times, and virtually every metro daily, lacks is readers who are willing pay for quality. We live in a culture that thinks news is free and, worse, that thinks news is easy/cheap to produce.
Free news is so ubiquitous, most Americans take it for granted as something akin to public water fountains. Need to know what’s going on, turn on the TV, pick up the Weekly or pop a quarter in the machine for the local rag.
That’s the real problem and it won’t be quickly or easily solved. Arianna Huffington is taking an interesting approach — mixing celebrity gossip with demi-celebrity commentating and a sprinkling of real news. It could be that she can keep it spinning fast enough to develop into something more substantial — it’s an experiment at this stage.
The financial news model is instructive. The Wall Street Journal is healthier than ever. You can’t get it free online, you have to pay. It has a huge readership and relies on subscription payment more than ad revenue.
Companies like Bloomberg — which is on a hiring spree of disused poobahs of bigtime journalism — charge $1,500 a month for their news.
People know they need finanacial news. At the moment, they don’t believe they need political, cultural and local news and they’re getting the weather, TV listings and funnies free online.
When Bush said he doesn’t read newspapers, he wasn’t flaunting his outre leisure style, he was spinning into the actual habits of his constituency, that just doesn’t see the relevance of in-depth news.
I’m the last person to root for a prolonged economic downturn, but it does seem one is inevitable. To be sure, it won’t be pretty. But at some levels, it may be good for segments of the culture. There will be a segment of the country that takes the chance to take a long hard look at the big picture of what an obsessively consumerist culture brings. Or maybe not. Maybe rising poverty only makes it worse. Let’s hope not.
July 17th, 2008 at 6:51 am
Well, you guys have a newspaper owner that you don’t like, so what do you do…complain. That has as much effect as people in Atlanta complaining about the liberal AJC for decades. You’re stuck.
July 17th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Thanks for demonstrating the usual blog trope of disagreeing to make a long-winded point.
Which since I get it, is pointless.
Hate to burst your bubble, but I get everything I need from Bloomberg gratis. Bloomberg is featured on my site every day, for free.
I do spend $20 a month on WSJ, but out of habit. I’m not really getting anything there I don’t otherwise know.
The truth is that LA needs a better breed of owner.
One who hasn’t “bought” the paper on the cheap, with the intention of financing the purchase by burning off the property.
It also needs a better paper.
I trust I didn’t leave the impression that I think much of the LAT.
July 17th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
“I get everything I need from Bloomberg gratis. Bloomberg is featured on my site every day, for free.”
No bubble, Bill, just your ignorance. You get a fraction of the journalism Bloomberg produces — a free sample.
That you don’t know the difference says it all.
The point, which you clearly don’t get, isn’t that people like you think you’re getting Bloomberg for free, but that others who do know what it actually is are willing to pay $1,500 a month to get it.
Granted, these people aren’t paying to get the 2,500-word feature on yuppity Korean women who shun marriage, they are paying to get realtime headlines like:
TRIBUNE CO. CREDIT RATING CUT TO JUNK
or
DOLLAR PLUNGES AS MCCAIN WINS ELECTION
or interviews with CEOs that hint or say outright about acquiring or selling companies.
The point is that Bloomberg’s subscribers need the news and have no choice but to pay for it.
Most Angelenos feel they don’t need news and, therefore, aren’t inclined to pay much for it to be delivered to their door or computer. They expect it to be free, or priced at a fraction of their daily coffee costs.
That is why the quality metro daily is a failing/failed business model. It’s no liberal conspiracy, nor a greedy owner’s play for power.
If you really think newspaper ownership is the solution, I don’t think you should be looking for pedigree. What you’re really saying is LAT needs a monumentally stupid owner, as in one willing to lose millions of her own and investors’ money year-in, year-out.
But people that dumb seldom accumulate the kind of wealth it would take to run a metro daily. They tend more to be the kind that don’t know what they don’t know about Bloomberg and so don’t really get a chance to build up capital.
July 17th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Hey, how about Roger Simon?
How’s his breeding?
ROTFL…
July 17th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Apologies for the triple, but I took a quick drive by Bill’s blog and found this among today’s goodies:
“Incidentally, I got a subscriber missive from the WSJ saying that with President Bush now again authorizing public negotiations with Iran (see the morning column) and on the verge of ordering further Iraq troop withdrawals, this will hurt Obama. No. This will validate Obama.”
Not only does Bill not “already know” what’s in the WSJ, he relies on his subscription to pad out his blog. Either he’s getting his money’s worth or he’s really ripping his own readers off. Maybe both…
July 17th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Marc, just read the post (belatedly), and been thinking the same thing.
July 17th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Pause for a joke:
Barack Obama’s sitting at a bar when a man comes up to him and says: “Wanna hear a Barack Obama joke?” Obama: “Er, hold on there, buddy — I am Barack Obama.” “Oh. all right then, I’ll tell it in Spanish.”
July 17th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Re Woody’s “Humor:”
Ed Wynn to Dick Van Dyke in “Mary Poppins”
“There’s nothin like a good joke and that was nothing like a good joke!”
Bada Bing!!
July 17th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Bunkerbuster, your blather is as irrelevant as it is longwinded.
July 17th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Jokes? Why not, it’s Friday somewhere…
Courtesy of McSweeny’s at:
http://tinyurl.com/aefrq
ALTHOUGH
I LIKE A GOOD
GEORGE W. BUSH JOKE
AS MUCH AS THE NEXT GUY, SOME OF THEM SEEM GRATUITOUS AND
MEAN-SPIRITED.
How many telemarketers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Wouldn’t a more relevant question be “How many pounds of cocaine has Bush snorted?”
- – - -
A doctor, a lawyer, and an accountant all die and go to heaven on the same day. When they get to the Pearly Gates, they are greeted by St. Peter. St. Peter says, “Scott McClellan is a lying sack of shit and I’d tell him so myself if he weren’t going straight to hell when he dies.”
- – - -
Q: What do you get when you cross an elephant and a rhino?
A: I’m not sure, but if the answer is “A cure for Parkinson’s disease,” then Bush will try to stop scientists from breeding them. Because he likes it when people get Parkinson’s.
- – - -
This guy walks into a bar carrying a small poodle in one hand and a bowling ball in the other. The guy says, “I’d like a glass of milk for me and a whiskey for my poodle.” The bartender says, “Yeah? Well, I’d like an impartial and independent judiciary, but try telling that to Bush, Hastert, and the rest of the GOP!”
- – - -
Q: What do you get when you cross a giraffe and a monkey?
A: I’m sorry, I can’t think about that right now because I’m too busy wondering why Congress hasn’t launched an official investigation into Bush lying to the American public about WMDs and leading us into a war under false pretenses. Tell you what—as soon as I solve that little riddle, I’ll get to work on your little genetic experiment.
- – - -
Q: How many eggs does it take to make a good omelet?
A: Three. By the way, John McCain is a hypocrite of the highest order.
- – - -
Did you hear that Bill Clinton hired a new intern? It turns out that his old intern had to go home and spend time with her family after her brother was killed in Iraq.
- – - -
Q: How many golf players does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: The answer may be locked away in the minutes of Cheney’s secret energy meetings. However, conventional wisdom says that the meetings were probably about finding a Cabinet-level position for a pre-scandal Ken Lay or about doing business with the Taliban.
- – - -
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Under the Patriot Act, we don’t have to tell you that.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:14 am
““There’s nothin like a good joke and that was nothing like a good joke!â€
Wasn’t when Barack first told it either.
BadaBoom!
Barack doesn’t seem to understand our kids can’t speak English yet. And for this reason, with Barack as President, there will be no changes to the stranglehold the NEA has on our powerless kids.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:38 am
Came across this by chance. Good example of good writing. Never agreed with the man but cannot argue with the quality of his writing.
Camper owner’s son captures hungry burglar
By Mark A. York, Enterprise Staff Writer
A transient entered a camping trailer in a storage area in Livingston Sunday and helped himself to a can of soup and a bottle of water, but was captured when the owner, Bruce Jones and his son, Corey, made a surprise visit.
“The suspect fled the scene and was later apprehended by the Joneses,†said Livingston Police Chief Darren Raney.
“Well, we went over to check on the RV,†Bruce Jones said, “and the door had been jimmied. We went in, and there was a pile of cans of food on the table, binoculars, and a big coat on the chair with a pair of boots by it. ‘Someone’s in here,’ I said to my wife. I went in the back room to the shower, opened the curtain, and there he was just standin’ there, hiding. So I grabbed him and we started tussling. I yelled to my wife to call 911.â€
“Then I hit him a couple of times on the top of his head,†Jones said of the suspect, identified on Monday by jail records as Sean Riley.
“When the police pulled up, he took off running, and I chased after him,†Jones said. “I got to the railroad tracks, tripped in the tall grass, fell and landed on my chest against a rail. That was the end for me. I went back, and me and my son got in the pickup and took off after him. We spotted him again, and my son got out, chased after him and caught him.â€
“He’s younger than I am,†said the elder Jones, a well-known local master’s track and field athlete.
When the police officer arrived, at the 100 block of North 10th Street, the Joneses had the suspect in custody and turned him over.
“I just want food,†Jones recalled Riley saying.
“I would have given him food if he’d asked,†Jones said. “We always try to help the needy. But not after stealing.â€
Jones said his chest hurt, he couldn’t lie down and was getting X-rays.
“It’s painful,†he said. “Now we have to disinfect the whole place now, because we don’t know if he has any diseases. It’s an ordeal.â€
Riley was arrested for burglary and is being held without bond in the Park County Detention Center.
He was scheduled to appear in Park County Justice Court this morning.
Published 7.10.2008
July 18th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Bill– have to agree. Much better writing than the slush pile from the right. I will google this writer to study his other work.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:54 am
Bill A. Tell Yorkie strikes again with a pesudonym.
Oh, wait, it only counts if a cheap little reporter for a 15th rate rag can’t find any other way to get his drivel in other than copy and paste into Marc’s site.
Yorkie, give it up… you are only making yourself look foolish. “Never agreed with the man but cannot argue with the quality of his writing.” is the most stupid lead in yet, and brother, you’ve had some doozies.
July 18th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Give York a break, G.M. Any job is good when you need one, and I’d rather have a newspaper than the taxpayers pay him. He went to that paper because there was some rumor floating around that the L.A. Times was not hiring.
Everyone should go to York’s website and say hello to him, and maybe cut and paste articles that they wrote, like he did here. He has a new picture, which looks eerily like one I saw in the postoffice.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Q. Why will Jimmy Carter vote for Barack Obama?
A. Because Jimmy doesn’t want to be the worst President in history.
Q. Why will Senator Hillary Clinton vote for Barack Obama?
A. Because he stole the primary election fair and square.
Q. Why will Jane Fonda vote for Barack Obama?
A. Because Ho Chi Minh is dead.
Q. Why will Ho Chi Minh vote for Barack Obama?
A. Because Ho Chi Minh is dead.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:39 am
I’m trying to figure out if there’s any possible way this thread could degenerate even further. Probably not. Unless someone posts this:
City transferring garbage to Logan on temporary basis
By Mark A. York, Enterprise Staff Writer
The City of Livingston is nearing completion of a $600,000 transfer station but in the meantime has been trucking garbage just over 50 miles to a landfill near Logan, following the suspension of a hauling contract with a Great Falls company.
Oh shit. I just did…
The saddest thing I learned from this thread is that Woody’s earnest posts are much funnier than his jokes.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:51 am
>Q. Why will Jane Fonda vote for Barack >Obama?
>A. Because Ho Chi Minh is dead.
>Q. Why will Ho Chi Minh vote for Barack Obama?
>A. Because Ho Chi Minh is dead.
Good one. I visited uncle Ho’s mausoleum not long ago, and he is looking pretty good for a dead guy. I hereby volunteer to be the Peace and Freedom Party poll watcher in Hanoi.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Stu, is it true then that when Uncle Ho was alive he was a Male, but now that he is dead he is a Mummy?
Bada-bing!
July 18th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Vaudeville is dead. Why murder it a second time here guys!
July 18th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Yeah Jim R. that Obama is an elitist snob. Why he told black kids to stay in school and told all of us that it would be good to learn a second language. What does he think we are? FRENCH? We’re ‘Mericans, we don’t need no stinking languages!!!
July 18th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
The economy may be going to hell in a handbasket and familiare institutions are going down the tubes but here in Oakland we dodged one bullet – no Starbucks closings ! The city rests easier tonight.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
My condolences Reg.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
The most robust free market I’ve ever seen were among the vendors in Vietnam.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Hey richard – don’t scoff. Starbucks is this nations’ foremost institution promoting the learning of a foreign language.
July 18th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Maybe in Oakland but down here in the OC I’d say its a tie between 7/11 and McDonalds!
July 18th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
>Hey richard – don’t scoff. Starbucks
>is this nations’ foremost
>institution promoting the learning
>of a foreign language.
I would have said that was the one thing GWB did right, excpet that no one else seems to be able to learn his language.
July 18th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Today in History Quiz:
Today is the anniversary of a famous incident involving a famous Democratic senator. But, there is nothing in today’s L.A. Times about it. Can anyone guess the senator and the event?
July 18th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
The thing that fascinates me about movement Lefties, is how much more money they make compared to the general population, and how much less of their own money they are willing to spend than the general population, on any transaction that might involve a bit of risk.
I mean, the propensity of really poor people to throw down for lottery tickets—a fool’s game—is well documented, and a favorite Left talking point.
But has any empiricist ever documented how risk- averse rich and upper middle class idealogical Leftists are?
Case in point: anyone reading this blog is invited to believe that Sam Zell is whipping the capitalist lash for certain return, not crap-rolling billions of dollars.
But you will never be shown any money, in support of the proposition. Marc Cooper isn’t throwing down his hard-earned wealth on the next journalistic big-money thing, and no one here who flys the Left flag is either. Few to none of these fired LA journalists collecting 8 times the average salary of a kitchen worker will be putting any of her own money into journalism, a dead craft.
They will be butt-sucking small corporate boards to keep their corporate flak PR jobs, while lecturing Sam Zell and kitchen workers about how the world should be.
The only constant equation is I am a Leftist, so I will play and you will pay.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:04 am
Sam: Your homework:
Googe Arianna Huffington, George Soros and Jay Levin. Write a 300 word commentary on their contributions to news media in America and on how their political orientation meshes or does not mesh with that.
Then, write a 1,500 word essay arguing that conservatives are more willing to spend money to develop media than are liberals. Be sure to explain why, even though conservatives invest far more in ideological welfare via think tanks, book publishers like Regnery and newspapers like the NY Post and Washington Times, yet STILL cannot produce a major metropolitan daily their own ideological supporters can accept as legitimate.
When you do your homework, you can post again.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:04 am
That should be “Google Arianna..”
July 19th, 2008 at 8:09 am
bunker, as I regularly have to state in this blog to lefties, exceptions don’t prove the rule–plus, your exceptions don’t fit the profile that Stoff described. He makes a point that should be discussed rather than dismissed with misleading rebuttals.
July 19th, 2008 at 8:16 am
Sam Stott gets the “talking out of my ass” award on this thread (no easy feat!)
July 19th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Al Gore is obsessed with climate change, to the point of appearing emotionally unstable.
He actually does more harm than good for a problem that needs our attention, not only for the potential for climate change, but a greater danger IMO of the huge amount of case flowing our of our country into the middle east.
This is the more immediate danger, and Al is not helping by trying to scare people with his over-the-top approach. He is scaring people, but from climate change.
If there is a god, Obama will pick him for a running mate.
July 19th, 2008 at 8:30 am
‘case’ is ‘cash’. ‘but from climate change’ is ‘but not’
July 19th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Oh, and he is a tree-hugger, so there are limits to what he will support to help solve the problem. We will shoot for the moon, and the risk we bankrupt before landing, but something a practical as Nuclear Power here on earth is out of the question, off the table, don’t mention it.
This is the sort of stupid dichotomy, the pathetic paradox, the holy hardheadedness form both political sides that has prevented us from solving this national security and climate problem for 25 years……and counting.
FIRE THEM ALL!
July 19th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Jim R joins Stott in the weeds, with totally unsupportable statements that run counter to what is empirically verifiable, i.e. that the overwhelming majority of public opinion considers global warming a serious problem and those numbers have increased in recent years (which, coincidentally is the period in which Al Gore has increased his public awareness efforts.) The coincidence of increased public concern with Al Gore’s efforts to increase public concern isn’t proof of cause and effect, but to assert that Gore’s efforts have “done more harm than good” to the cause of dealing with global warming is about as tendentious and head-totally-up-one’s-own-ass as you can get.
We need smarter stupid people on this blog.
July 19th, 2008 at 10:36 am
It does do “more harm than good” when Al Gore, along with the U.N., diverts attention, study grants, industry mandates, and taxpayer money from real needs driven by science to put-up perceived needs driven by politics, while needlessly alarming the general public. Al Gore, himself, admitted to exaggerating and misleading the public to gain attention to his cause.
As someone else described Gore’s man-bear-pig mission:
People with big megaphones should use them responsibly.
Regarding the U.N. and the IPCC conclusions:
The UN climate change numbers hoax
July 19th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Department of “I Can Pull Any Assertion Out Of My Ass Because I’m a Hysterical Crackpot Passing as a ‘Conservative’”:
“Al Gore, himself, admitted to exaggerating and misleading the public to gain attention to his cause.”
I challenge you to quote Al Gore stating that he “exaggerates and misleads the public to gain attention to (global warming.”
You’re a serial liar, Woody. It’s really that simple. Perhaps you should seek professional help with this perverse compulsion.
July 19th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Marc
Just got back to LA and have been catching up on all your recent columns here on the state of the LAT times. Very depressing stuff. Although I thought you struck some very cool points regarding tracking a career path independent of a big corporate employer.
Quick out of town comparison: What a pleasure to pluck down my $1 everyday on the News & Free Press (2 otherwise middling papers) while in Detroit to read the daily flogging of the corrupt mayor (now we learn city council, too). The public airing of the criminality of that mayor is almost exclusively the hard work of reporters and journalists. And when Detroit gets a new (hopefully law abiding) mayor, it will no doubt be to some significant credit to the reporters who uncovered the corruption.
With that in mind and thinking how the LAT is parting ways with so many reporters and employees, I can’t help but conclude that a negative tide is sweeping across LA that erodes the public’s ability to hold government (and big corporate players) accountable. Not to say that LA’s government is comparable to the city of Detroit (thank god) — I typically told Detroiters that if Villaraigosa had been tagged with even 10% of the charges laid upon Mayor Kilpatrick, Antonio would’ve been bounced from office in a heartbeat. Least I’d like to believe LA’s civic institutions are that sound. The deterioration of the LAT doesn’t help.
July 19th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I miss the days when GM and Woody would tell us what a terrific president George W. Bush was and that people who criticized him were delusional and suffering from a form of mental illness.
July 19th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
I find it instructive that Woody – who we all know NEVER EVER has an unki9nd word to say about people unlike the big bad lefties who say terrible things about Snow and Helms – uses today to remind us all of Chappiquiddeick.
Very well, lets.
And while we’re at it when is the anniverary of Laura Bush’s vehicular manslaugher (that got suppressed) while under the influence.
And when did GWB become a dry drunk? If ever?
July 19th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
reg: I challenge you to quote Al Gore stating that he “exaggerates and misleads the public to gain attention to (global warming.â€
Ah, reg, you’re in denial. Seek professional help.
First, that wasn’t a direct quote but a description of what he said, so here it is.
Examples of where Al Gore intentionally misled people:
How do you interpret his euphemism of
“overstate factual presentations?” Al Gore is accusing mankind of using carbon weapons of mass destruction against the Earth, and he admitted it.
You take up for anyone who is on “your side” simply because of the fact that he is on your side. You’re still with the sheep herd doing and saying everything just like the others–you and Mark York.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
So Gore said no such thing and you’re a goddam liar.
Just as I thought.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Incidentally, you’ve lied again in your “quote” of Gore’s “euphemism.”
He said “over-representation of factual representations”, not “over-state factual representations”. In the context of the question, it’s clear that he’s talking about presenting a large preponderance of facts, not exaggerating facts.
In your defense, you’re probably not intellectually capable of grasping that since you’re drowning in your own hysteria.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
See the examples, idiot. Yeah, like we are in imminent danger of sea levels rising twenty feet. Gore lied and he knew it.
On another subject and something that you would never see in the L.A. Times is this accurate headline:
Former Sen. Max Cleland
How the disabled war veteran became the Democrats’ mascot.
They dress him up just like a pet and show him off.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
That’s right Woody – ole “stumpy”
is a mascot. But let Gen Clark point out the obvious (getting shot down and becomming a POW doesn’t qualify one to be CinC) and the heaven’s open up.
Get over it Woodster and prepare for Novemeber’s trouncing! Or as little Tommy Friedman would no doubt put it – “Suck it Up!”
July 19th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Let us change gears. Seen the pix of Obama with the troops in Kuwait on his frst stop? He even makes a three pointer in a little B-Ball with the troops! That roar you hear is John McCain asking his advisors “Who was the genius who said I should challenge him to go to Iraq?”
July 19th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
And, in case you’re living in a cave, that Reuters piece on Maliki’s interview with DER SPIEGEL just about sinks old john. As one advisor told the press – “We’re fucked!!”
Seriously this ought to be game set and match for Obama.What does McCain say now? And what does he do when even Bush is taliking “Time Horizons” – but I did notice that Petreus said Maliki didn’t mean it.
Memo to the General – stop sucking up sir. Your patron is circling the drain!
July 19th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
This pretty much drives a stake in the heart of the dead-enders…
Best strategy for the GOP at this point is to hand the nomination to Ron Paul.
July 19th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Woody: “Examples of where Al Gore intentionally misled people”
I didn’t realize you were a empath too, Woody. You, Marc, Steve, and myself should hang out, especially now that we’ve got a fourth. That place in Angeles National Forest I told Marc about before hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s beautiful there– the moon shines above like a poker chip glinting in the hidden glow a neon sun and the trees loom into the night like the arms of a thousand one-armed bandits while the stars spin slowly in their courses like the reels of a billion slot machines all hitting “BAR”; it’s a place where we can cast the circle, call the quarters, invoke the triple god of gambling, (Boyd-Wynn-Hilton, the god who does play dice with the universe, namely craps) and play some blackjack with a deck of Rider-Waite cards. You guys will love it, trust me.
July 19th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Given Maliki’s latest statement, John McCain’s prowess in America’s wars abroad seems to consist of a knack for getting shot down.
July 19th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
D.C.: Gore admitted it. I didn’t have to read his mind. Gore: I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations… Read, “I intend to deceive and mislead people over the reality of the matter. I want them to have the wrong impression so as to do what I want.”
July 19th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Gee Bunky,
Let’s keep it simple, in the hope that you can understand. Since I am not a zero-sum anti-capitalist ideologue, unlike you, and since I am not even an ideologue, unlike you, and since I am not partisan, unlike you, not only do I not object to Arrianna Huffington, George Soros and Jay Levin, I congratulate them for spending their money to keep the pot stirred.
The more voices the better. The more publishing the better. The more arguing the better. I am glad to see the Huffington Post for the same reason I am glad to see Fox News.
Because I am not a fascist and am not a reactionary. I don’t deplore the existence of voices—any voices—all voices.
I’m not telling George Soros, Arriana Huffington and Jay Levin how to spend their money, and claiming that they are violating a public trust for
doing what they want.
But you are telling Sam Zell how to spend his money, claiming that he is violating a public trust.
Pure nonsense. It’s a free country in which publishing grows ever cheaper, not more expensive. What do you fear, besides free speech, democracy, the great unwashed public and the future?
Sorry Bub. It’s not my fault that the Left is full of reactionary control-freaks.
July 20th, 2008 at 12:07 am
I have largely stopped replying to Woody, but his post above (7/19 10:36am) got my attention –
The item starting “Regarding the U.N. and the IPCC conclusions” that links to an op-ed in an Australian source, originally from a Canadian paper.
Well, it’s cherry-picked rubbish. A little poking around in the details shows that the panel members they give all their credibility to (e.g. Vincent Gray) are just the 1% crust of skeptics that will be present in any large panel. Gray appears to have no track record on climate science (http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=1138). If you google him looking for publications or professional website, you come up with nothing but an astroturf site or two, and a 96 page “book” in a pro-oil vanity press.
Woody, here’s the deal. To really be qualified to dis the IPCC report on technical grounds, you have to have a massive scientific track record in the field. Here’s what the web site of a non-bogus IPCC member should look like:
http://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Miller/
It should not look like this:
http://www.nrsp.com/people-vincent-gray.html
See the difference? One is doing science. The other one is just a gadfly.
July 20th, 2008 at 6:37 am
Um, Sam, you should read my posts if you’re going to comment on them.
I’ve said over and over again, including in very nearby comments on this very threat, that Zell isn’t the problem.
Moreover, I suspect I am more of a capitalist than you are and, unless you are doing parody, I am sure I know more about how capitalism actually works than you do.
July 20th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Michael Turmon, where were you last week when “scientists” were claiming that global warming was causing more kidney stones?
If you can’t find legitimate scientific studies that refute global warming claims and list scientists who remain skeptics, then you simply want to close your eyes to them. However, my “rubbish,” as you call it, came through a site which is dedicated to the environment and allows scientific debate from both sides—unlike Gavin Schmidt, who made me understand that political leftists control NASA’s AGW agenda.
Now, I’ve learned better than to look at NASA sites on AGW after the nonsense where your own guy at JPL learned the political lessons of disagreeing with radicals within the organization. It’s either tow the line or we’ll get you fired.
Do you agree with the IPCC? Have you questioned their methods and their withholding of critical dissent? Consider this:
Prejudiced authors, Prejudiced findings – Did the UN bias its attribution of “global warming†to
humankind? by John McLean.
And, really, how stupid and closed-minded is it to say that something isn’t valid because it was repeated by a media source? But, you go to “EXXON Secrets” for your left-wing ideas.
Maybe you prefer disinformation like this:
Reasoned people would like my sources more than those on your side.
The global warming alarmists are losing steam and they know it and are getting desperate. America is slowly catching on to them.
July 20th, 2008 at 10:17 am
I won’t be replying farther than this post, except the pubs list I refer to below.
About Vincent Gray, I think the burden is on you to produce some kind of publications list. I couldn’t find anything — the exxon secrets site is the closest I could get. (Obviously they have an agenda. But the point is, do *you* have a reference to Gray’s climate pubs list?) When I’m at my office I have access to a comprehensive author lookup service. We shall see what develops on that one.
And if you delve farther into the editorial you originally cited, you will come up with more characters like this, and their dubious astroturf “institutions”. It just becomes tiresome to tot it up.
If you think that some cabal of leftists got Griffin to knuckle under, you don’t remember the incident, nor have you ever had interaction with Griffin. He’s tough, and he doesn’t have to answer to scientists for his job — he’s appointed by the president. (He also, as NASA administrator, runs JPL. To the extent that if he thinks there are too many people working there, he will ask the director of the lab to let people go. This has in fact happened. Like I said, he’s tough.) What actually happened in the incident you refer to, is that Griffin got out in front of Bush himself in denying the importance of climate change and ended up recanting.
The statement by Griffin that you’re referring to is:
Again, if you know Griffin, this is totally the kind of thing he would say. He’s tough. Basically, he’s saying, hey, you might turn out to like it once the north polar ice cap disappears. So let’s see how it goes, you know?
July 20th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Woody – thank God I can actually read and don’t have to have you tell me how to “read.”
July 20th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Among other things Woody, your assertion that your link is to some site without an ideological agenda, when Jennifer Marohasey is an operative for an Australian think-tank with an explicitly “free-market”, anti-regulatory, climate-change “skepticism” ideological agenda reveals what a ridiculous fraud you are.
July 20th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
To jump back to the BIG deal that rlc brought up, if you read the Der Spiegel interview with Maliki, he wasn’t asked to respond to Obama’s views on troop withdrawal. He brought Obama’s timeline up himself in response to a question about what a timeline for withdrawal might look like.
And the later “clarification” – which was issued through the US military command center (!) rather than the Iraqis themselves – retracts nothing that Maliki said in the interview.
John McCain and Bush have been officially kicked in the nuts by Maliki.
July 20th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Michael Turmon, I don’t know why you keep bringing up only Vincent Gray. He’s just one out of many who have seen the light on global warming hysteria.
Here’s a few scientists who have reversed AGW positions and become skeptics.
Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming – Now Skeptics
But, don’t go to wikipedia for things that oppose global warming or for lists of skeptics. The Wiki-zealots delete anything that goes against the warming “consensus.” They can’t have anyone question the scientists getting grants.
Regarding your tough boss, here’s what some of the NASA nuts had to say about Michael Griffin’s statement, and they weren’t quite a polite as you.
James Hansen, NASA’s top climate scientist: “It’s an incredibly arrogant and ignorant statement. It indicates a complete ignorance of understanding the implications of climate change.â€
Gavin Schmidt, NASA climate scientist: “Griffin’s comments seem surprisingly naive.”
Griffin can’t even control his own team. I would never talk that way about the head of a company where I worked. Oh, and James Hansen is the fruitcake who wants oil executives put on trial for giving “misinformation” about his global warming theory. Welcome, Stalin.
Here’s the video of the “apology” from Griffin. He doesn’t look tough to me. In fact, he looks scared. And, he knows that being appointed by a presently unpopular President doesn’t insure job security when the left and liberal media attack.
NASA Head Apologizes for Global Warming Comment
Okay, I don’t want to argue global warming, but I did want to defend my statements and to point out that people like reg believes what helps him rather than the truth.
- – -
reg, when Al Gore says that he exaggerates dangers, then he is attempting to deceive. I didn’t expect you to admit that.
July 20th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Arguing climate change with Woody and the other lnow0nothings is futile as they are true velievers in the ?Magic of the Market” and, thus, any contradition challenges their theological perceptions. As a Catholic I might as well argue the Physical nature of the Transubtantiation of the Eucharist.
July 20th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Woody, give it up. You lied about Gore, then you misquoted him and now you keep spinning a quote – totally out of context – to say something it doesn’t. You’re a liar and a fool. You prove it daily.
July 20th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Woody – I know you don’t give a shit about comprehending truth or meaning if it doesn’t serve your ends, but anyone with an IQ above room temperature can see that the question Gore was responding to was about the “mix” of presenting facts that present the nature of the problem with ideas that present potential solutions (“scare” vs. “hope” in the Q’s parlance.) Gore’s response was that given where people are it was “appropriate to over-represent” – i.e. weigh the presentation – toward the facts about the extremity of the problem versus ideas that present potential solutions. He was simply stating that his presentation was the wake-up call, the sounding of an alarm, more than a prescriptive set of solutions to a generally known and acknowledged problem, given the stage of public awareness.
This is so elementary it’s embarrassing to have to explain it to anyone. And I know that in your case it will do no good, because you’re a screeching hysteric who revels in attempts to compound ignorance.
July 20th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
And reg can’t see Al and Woody are two peas in different pods.
They’re both peas in their unwillingness to entertain any information that would counter their extreme positions at each end of the debate. Sounds like Congress.
Al, of course, is in a position to do more damage than Woody, and he is doing it by failure to use his influence on GW to push a compromise that involves various means to reduce our use of fossil fuels.
But Nooooooo. He wants to go to the moon instead………his birthplace I’m thinking.
July 20th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Al Gore is as idiotic as Woody. And it’s Gore’s fault that W hasn’t done enough about climate change !
I love this stuff…
July 20th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
What does a liar do when people start to catch on to him…enlist a mob of other liars.
Former Vice President Al Gore made a surprise appearance Saturday at the Netroots Nation conference, a gathering of nearly 2,000 left-leaning bloggers and political organizers. He urged the activists to mobilize for global climate protection by amplifying his call to generate all the nation’s electricity from renewable sources like wind, solar and geothermal in 10 years. …Recent Republican calls to battle rising oil prices with more drilling are “absurd” and a bit like curing a hangover with another drink, he said.
July 21st, 2008 at 6:42 am
Have you heard the latest ? T. Boone Pickens is a leftist idelogue who wants to destroy the American economy by ending our dependence on foreign oil and generating our electricity by windmills and solar power.
July 21st, 2008 at 2:28 pm
The Times has always seemed very thin to me, unable to get out in front of issues, inspecific and addicted to institutional stories with clear paper trails, while celebrating L.A. with self-referential, self-mythologized goop. It’s easy to pick-up…and put down. So no surprise that it’s biz section last week used the same marketing consultant – Portnoy – twice in separate stories, styling his name differently, and then failed to localize a national story – Starbucks, and failed to nationalize a local story – Tesco/Trader Joe’s. My feeling is, it is a leaderless paper without strong editors or guidance, and it’s been that way for many years. They’re only just now waking up to covering public transit.
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:14 pm
OK, Gray has three publications in all science categories in Web of Science. They’re all letters to New Scientist, a general-interest publication.
What a crock.