May 08, 2008

Great Rant From Police Commissioner

Okay, this is an ESPN Instant Classic rant from Police Commissioner Charles Ramsay after an Inquirer reporter asked an annoying question, and by that I mean one that referenced Wikipedia. Ha ha, silly journalist, you're supposed to hate Wikipedia. The video does confirm the "fricking" variant said by Ramsay.

Earlier today: Wikipedia Blasted For Its Accuracy

Posted by D-Mac at 05:59 PM | Comments (3)

April 30, 2008

Buzz To Blogs: Get Off My Lawn!

Buzz Bissinger -- writer of Friday Night Lights, chronicler of Barbaro, inventor of high school football racism -- was on Costas Now last night on a panel with Will Leitch (editor of Deadspin) and Braylon Edwards (Cleveland Browns wide receiver).

If you didn't see it, Bissinger went on a rant about blogs, asked Will Leitch if he had ever read W.C. Heinz, called him full of shit and also said this: "This guy, whether we like it or not, is the future. The future in the hands of guys like you is really going to dumb us down to a degree that I don't think we can recover from."

Let me write about the W.C. Heinz reference for a moment. Heinz is famous for writing "Death of a Racehorse," a 1,000-word piece about how a dying racehorse. In contrast, Bissinger's column on Barbaro was 13,000 words. (Update: Hey, I made the comments of Fire Joe Morgan!)

I will say that I don't -- can't! -- believe that Bissinger was serious last night. This whole 'blogs-vs.-newspapers' debate is so, uhm, 2005, maybe earlier. By 2006 Phillymag (Phillymag!) had given my blog a B+ rating and that was back when PWD was even worse. Blogs are a medium: Most of them suck, some of them are good -- just like newspaper columnists and TV shows and movies and penny-farthings and cheeseburgers. (The only two things that are mostly good are sex and pizza.) Right? Right?

Then again, maybe not. PW Music Editor Brian McManus was recently on a music panel with Tom Moon; the former Inquirer music writer read the Pitchfork review of In Rainbows and angrily ranted about it afterward. And this is another good ex-Inquirer writer!

It might just be as simple as what a friend told me this morning: "They're all just bitter that they didn't think of writing The Wire." Well put.

Update 2: Jon Weisman has more on this. And Enrico has more too.

Posted by D-Mac at 11:35 AM | Comments (2)

October 29, 2007

One-Paragraph Rant Disguised As Newspaper Column

The large, one-¶ rant to your right is not a blog post on a comment on some messageboard. No, it is a one-paragraph column by none other than America's Best Columnist, Chris Freind,!

It was one-paragraph online, at least. The Bulletin doesn't have the customary line of white space between paragraphs online, and there are spots that could have broken this rant into as many as four (4) paragraphs. Freind's enemy this time is New York governor Eliot Spitzer, who is apparently promoting a plan to allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses.

I don't care enough to look up Spitzer's reasoning for the plan, but Freind says it will only lead to terrorists flying planes into the Empire State Building. No, really: "If the brotherhood of Mohammed Atta decides to target the Empire State Building with weapons and explosives bought legally with their state-sanctioned drivers license, or, on the off-chance, they take a one-way joyride in a 767, you may have a few people knocking at your Mansion door." Why is mansion capitalized?

Freind has a ton of awesome arguing techniques in this column, including a reminder that illegal immigration is against the law. "Period." He actually writes that! And he uses the term "fat cats"! Oh, and he talks about how terrorists are now going to be voting in record numbers, since they'll be able to obtain driver's licenses. Basically, it reads like a parody of a right-wing opinion column.

The ending is my favorite part, though, because I'm not sure if he's inciting a call to violence or not:

In the midst of the most dangerous time in our nation's history, our "leaders" go out of their way to aid and abet the enemy. In case you're interested, the Governor's Mansion is in Albany.

So... are we supposed to storm the capital, Bastille-style, and come out with Spitzer's head on a pike? I mean, I like Macbeth and all, but I don't really know if recreating Macduff's beheading is the best way to settle disputes in 21st century America.

However: On Saturday, Spitzer went back on his plan, meaning Freind turning up the heat most certainly worked. Don't try to cross America's Best Columnist; you'll only get burned.

Driver's Licenses For Illegals Makes Al-Qaida - And Dems - Cheer [The Bulletin]
Governor Accused of Betraying Principles [NYT]

Posted by D-Mac at 11:53 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)