Sweeney Todd

Have you seen this?

Tim Burton is basically teh hotness, and not just because he's married to Helena Bonham Carter.

Though that definitely helps.

Chicago: "Saul Bellow is a rascist!"

Bellow's remarks on race haunt legacy in Hyde Park (Chicago Tribune)

Alderman Toni Preckwinkle refuses to name a city-something after the very much dead Pulitzer Prize winning Chicago author, and declines to tell the Trib why.

Somewhere on Lake Michigan, Sufjan Stevens is crying himself to sleep.

The Future Is Now

ABC News Expands Foreign Bureaus (Washington Post)

Due to an explosion in hand-held digital technology, ABC News is opening seven new news bureaus overseas, to be staffed by only a single person equipped with a DV camera and laptop. The reporter/producers will shoot and edit their own pieces, with long-distance help from ABC News offices, sending in their work via broadband or satellite connections from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

While this type of reporting has become a staple of blogs and independent journalists, it's the first I've heard of one of the major American news-broadcasters joining the fray. And it's good news, too. It used to be a given that a network's news division wasn't going to make much money -- the Big Three (ABC, NBC and CBS) reported anyway because of a strange marriage of journalistic integrity and network branding. The thought was that if people tuned into your nightly news program, they might stick around for Prime Time, too. In recent years, though, this model has been scrapped for a new one emphasizing cost cutting and increased national coverage (at the expense of foreign news bureaus). These seven new bureaus, while tiny in comparison to the old models, are exactly the shot in the arm that Network News needs. Foreign correspondence shouldn't be sacrificed to the bottom line; it needs be streamlined and brought into the 21st Century. Digital technology allows just that.

And it's better than the alternative: Reporting only in the "hot spots" where there is a sizable American interest (i.e., Europe, Israel, Iraq, etc.) while virtually ignoring the rest of the world -- if, for nothing else, to know something about other nations before we invade them.

Just kidding. Sort of.

Cognitive Dissonance

From General George Washington's orders bringing about the Cessation of Hostilities between the United States of America and the King of Great Britain -- Friday, April 18, 1783:

Happy, thrice happy shall they be pronounced hereafter, who have contributed any thing, who have performed the meanest office in erecting this steubendous fabrick of Freedom and Empire on the broad basis of Indipendency; who have assisted in protecting the rights of humane nature and establishing an Asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions.

The United States of America, that great Asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions, except if you really are poor and oppressed (and from Mexico):

• INS raids hit home for Northern Nevada families
• Immigration debate revives over local raids
• "This land belongs to God and not to the United States." -- Gilbert Cortez, president of Casa Latina Centro de Informacion

Vermont Public Radio Is Getting Better Every Day

Meets Requirements Satisfactorily

After something of a rant last winter about how much I hated Vermont Public Radio, I've been slowly getting acclimated to an NPR that plays loads and loads of classical music every day. I wasn't very happy making the transition from Chicago Public Radio to VPR, but after a while you just sort of get used it. And Walter Parker is the man, so that helps.

Yet little by little, VPR has been adding programs (or sometimes programmes!) that I enjoy. One night last June I noticed that the World was broadcast every night after Marketplace. O Joy!* Then came news that VPR would be splitting its Classical Network into a separate entity. Starting tomorrow VPR will feature news programs from 9am-3pm -- and that's not all! They've also added American Routes on Saturday nights!**

I'd like to think they saw my blog and took my advice and that I'm pretty much all powerful and awesome to behold in my glory and strength and wisdom and honor forever and ever until the Day of the LORD or Ragnarok or whichever comes first. But let's face it, I'm not and they didn't. Or at least I don't think so from their press release.

VPR didn't follow all my instructions, however. Day to Day is on the new schedule (O Alex Chadwick! How I love you so!) As is BBC Newshour. (Damn fine journalists, those Lobsterbacks!) But no To the Point. (Warren Olney, I'll tie a yellow ribbon for you!) Instead, we've got WBUR's On Point, which I'm not exactly wild about. But when the latter program is from Boston and the former is from California, it makes sense, East Coast Bias and all. KCWR gets no love from the Green Mountain State. Sorry, Nic Harcourt.

Furthermore, This American Life is still not airing in its natural Friday night home, which is just plain immoral. And still no Tavis Smiley Show on the weekends. The Rutland Herald is reporting that all 17 Afro-Americans in Vermont are up in arms. Just kidding. They don't care, either.

All in all, it's a nice improvement, though somewhat sad. For the near future I won't have access to VPR Classical in Rutland unless I purchase a digital receiver (fat chance of that on an AmeriCorps budget), which means no more Peter Fox Smith and Saturday Afternoon at the Opera. And like I said, Walter Parker is the man. Though apparently, he loves music more than journalism. Some days, though, I don't blame him.


*Though now that summer hours are over, and I'm back to Noon-7:30 hours at work, it hasn't been quite so joyous.
**Though maybe they did that ages ago. I'm usually out doing something at that time; though that something is usually no more anti-social and boring and unproductive as listening to the radio all by myself on a Saturday night, so don't think I'm Joe Camel or Marty McFly.

Take That Villainy!

Sticking with the P-Fork theme:

Kim Gordon: Starbucks "Less Evil Than Universal"

Sure, why not.

Jokey McJokepants

From the Onion, Pitchfork Gives Music 6.8

Probably the funniest line comes from the (fake) mouth of EIC Ryan Schreiber: "In the end, though music can be brilliant at times, the whole medium comes off as derivative of Pavement."

Chasing 61

With Alex Rodriguez on a tear lately, it looks as though he's got his sights set on the Yankee's club HR record of 61 set by Roger Maris. And it brings up an interesting question: with all the unknowns surrounding Bonds, McGwire, Sosa and steroids, would A-Rod hitting 62 home runs this season mean something as far as the record books are concerned?

As far as the official MLB records go, no it won't. Until Major League baseball can prove that Bonds and Co. were juicing, those records still stand. But in the hearts and minds of some fans, A-Rod reaching 61 in a post-steroids era does mean something. To a lot of people, should he pass Maris, it would be the first "clean" break of the single season home run record. And in a way, that's fitting, because Maris was chasing another Yankee in that magical 1961 season, as was Mickey Mantle. We forget that Mantle was battling Maris all season long, and ended up with just six dingers shy of 60 himself.

New York Yankees Single Season Home Run Records

• Roger Maris 61 - 1961
• Babe Ruth 60 - 1927
• Babe Ruth 59 - 1921
• Babe Ruth 54 - 1920
• Babe Ruth 54 - 1928
• Mickey Mantle 54 - 1961
• Mickey Mantle 52 -1956
• Alex Rodriguez 52 - 2007 (as of 9/10)
• Babe Ruth 49 -1930
• Lou Gehrig 49 -1936
• Lou Gehrig 49 -1934

That's rare company for A-Rod; and maybe how it should be. If anyone's going to hit 61+ in the Post-Steroids Era, it might as well be a Yankee.

Kimmel Breaks It Down

Via TVSquad, Jimmy Kimmel explains what Miss Teen South Carolina actually meant.

Like such as.

A New Look!

Well, it's not exactly a new template, but it was just as time consuming. There is more to be done, for sure. But I need a break. Knowing next to nothing about HTML and Photoshop makes for fun afternoons, let me tell you!