So since Steve Benen has been a recurring guest on Maddow’s Air America show for some time, does this mean we should expect Steve to be making appearances on her MSNBC show? One would think so, but as it happens, our local NBC affiliate, WPTZ — where Steve would have to go for the satellite uplink — apparently is not sufficiently equipped to send a feed up to MSNBC. I know this because Steve was invited to appear on Olbermann’s show several weeks ago and they couldn’t do it from Burlington — Steve would have had to travel to New York or Boston to have been on the show.
Congratulations, Rachel!
From Olbermann’s leak of the announcement…
Let me answer the key questions in advance:
1) No, she will not be serving as a VeeJay introducing music clips or cartoons.
2) No, I don’t think we have the name of the show chosen yet. She wanted to use “Countdown With Keith Olbermann” and I said, that’s where I draw the line.
3) No, the format isn’t set, though there have been a lot of discussions out there and they have all centered on how to best allow her to both give her laser-quality insights while soliciting the opinions of others.
4) Yes, I had something to do with it.
5) Yes, you had something to do with it.
6) Yes, this is why I never really responded to any of the 41,754 comments that all pretty much read “And get Rachel her own show, nitwit.”
7) No, I’m not sure it will replay later in the evening but I bloody well hope so.
Yes, I did like the description of her in The Nation: “Everything about her radiates competence and a deft, bright careerism.”
Steve “The Carpetbagger” Benen is leaving The Carpetbagger Report and moving on to become the full-time blogger at Washington Monthly’s Political Animal, replacing Kevin Drum, who is moving on to blog for Mother Jones. I’ve been partly privy to Steve’s plans for a little while (and secretly afraid of how this move would affect Poli-Sci-Fi Radio - short answer: it won’t), and I’m very excited for him. He deserves to be paid for what he does and now he will be. Congratualtions, Steve!
Today on The McCain Report, the official John McCain blog, blogger Michael Goldfarb wrote…
It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman’s memory of war from the comfort of mom’s basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others.
Okay, what? There’s a “pro-Obama Dungeons and Dragons crowd?” I want to be a card-carrying member!
This particular slur seemed out of nowhere to me, but then I realized Goldfarb was using D&D in a fake war vs. real war sense — like all of us peaceniks think war is really cool until we’re expected to go and actually fight one.
At first blush I thought it was kind of silly for the McCain camp lump Obama supporters with D&D nerds, but then I considered the audience for the remarks. How does the McCain campaign want the pro-war set to view Obama supporters? How can they make anti-war voters look weak? The McCain campaign can’t paint with too broad a social brush lest they be accused of being intolerant. They can’t just make fun of those who want peace or they look like war mongers, and they can’t very well come right out and call Obama supporters “pussies” or “sissies.” so what are they to do? What’s the one social group it’s still okay to make fun of? Nerds. Nerds are weak, ineffectual, cowardly.
I think it’s time to organize. Nerds for Obama, unite!
UPDATE: look! We have a t-shirt already!
We noted on today’s episode of Poli Sci-Fi Radio that it was a pretty slow week, sci-fi-wise, despite the fact that it’s the opening weekend of a Star Wars movie. And indeed, when Emily and I walked into the theater for a 9:30 screening tonight at 9:15, there wasn’t a soul in the room. Eventually two other people came in, but we didn’t exactly have to jockey for good seats.
How was the film? Meh. Which is to say, considerably more enjoyable than either episodes one or two. Emily described it as an extra long Saturday morning cartoon. I thought it was rather like all the cut scenes of a Lucas Arts video game strung together to tell a narrative of “supplemental” Star Wars material.
I’m all in favor of Lucasfilm churning out more from the Star Wars universe, but they really need to put these main characters (that is, Anakin, Obi Wan, Yoda, et al.) to rest and tell the stories of some other folks in that world. There’s plenty of fodder for good story-telling there. I say let Joss Whedon take a crack at a Star Wars film. Let him write some new characters and stories and set them a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It would be instant SF gold. In the meantime, we get to sit through mediocre, tepid action adventures with tired and cliched characters.
Back in the 80s my friends and I used to occasionally fight our teen boredom by prank calling the live Robert Tilton religious telecast, Success-N-Life. Tilton was such an obviously craven mountebank that our disdain for him provided a quick laugh now and then. He would even speak “in tongues” by basically spouting gibberish when he’d get really worked up. IIRC, a favorite syllabic string of his was “ba-soya ba-sohn.”
When the 90s came, Tilton got in big trouble for fraud and slid off the map for a while, but this little gem of a video popped up and became a very early internet viral video. We used to play this on our now-defunct cable access TV show. It’s the most basic, lowest common denominator sort of humor, and it cracks me up every single time I see it…
It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen it. According to Wikipedia, Tilton is doing his bilking on BET now, so maybe this video is relevant again.
It’s Friday night, and before I get back to The Wire season five, I thought I’d mention that Dear S turned me onto this social network targeted at dorks: Hardcore Nerdity. Join. Make a profile. Friend me. I had the day off today and making that profile might actually be the most productive thing I did. Yup, it’s that bad. I had big plans, productivity-wise too.
Tomorrow my dear friend Carolyn is getting married in Portland, Oregon. Emily and I really want to be there but it didn’t work out. Here’s a picture of her at our wedding…
Mazel tov, Carolyn! Send me lots of pictures!
I’m pretty busy this week and there’s precious little time for blogging, but here are a few items I’ve stumbled across in recent days…
All this week VCAM and RETN are hosting a video-making summer camp for 6th-9th graders. All day today I’ve been either working with kids or editing video interviews they shot of each other. The plan is to upload a video blog entry for each day. These were all shot on the Flip Ultra camera, BTW, which is teh awesome.
There’s lots of stuff I’ve been meaning to blog about, including Friday’s Daysie party and the amazing Katamari cake at Matt Strauss’ birthday bash. I’ll get to those things, but first, you should watch this incredible and inspiring Obama video. Seriously, this is absolutely a must-see piece of media. Turn your speakers way up so you can hear all the little details. The Yes We Can video has nothing on this.
Thanks alexch, thanks a lot.
Emily and I are just days away from celebrating our first year of being (mostly) meat-free. Last August we decided to stop participating in the wasteful and cruel economies of the big beef, chicken and pork industries. We became pescetarians (vegetarians who eat fish) in large part due to this provocative essay by transhumanist George Dvorsky.
For a while I’ve been saying that once we’d completed a year of more or less strict pescetarianism, I would let myself start to occasionally consume local, humanely raised and slaughtered meat. That’s still the plan, though my desire to consume animal flesh was sharply reduced by seeing this…
“It tastes like meat and it can look like meat but we can actually change the composition of the product quite a lot so we can mask the meaty flavour,” Mike North from AgResearch says.
And with busy families demanding more convenient yet healthy foods AgResearch believes it is on to something.
Kids love spaghetti but for many parents it’s hard to get them to eat meat - so the meaty, protein saturated, pasta version could be an innovative way of providing youngsters with vital nutrients and iron.
Okay, what? We have to convince our kids to eat meat? Since when? And how is extruded, pale yellow meat-poo more appetizing to anyone than a hamburger? Watch the video for all the Play-Doh Fun Factory excitement.
Via Boing Boing
Hey all you Burlington Telecom subscibers! Now you can watch several of my short films on your TVs whenever you want, for free! Using your BT remote control, push “menu” and navigate your way thusly: rentals/local content/VCAM/Bill Simmon’s short films. You’ll need to enter your PIN (provided by BT) but the content is all free. As of now, the following films are available for viewing:
There is also a slew of other local programs up for your viewing pleasure, so enjoy.
Since 2004 Candleblog has been the online journal of Vermont filmmaker, Bill Simmon. Bill uses Candleblog as a repository of pop culture ephemera, amusing anecdotes, occasional deep thoughts and anything else he thinks is web-worthy.
Candleblog has received the Seven Days "Daysie" Award for Best Vermont Blog (non-political) in 2005, 2007 and 2008.
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