BuzzMachine... by Jeff Jarvis

February 01, 2004

Wow
: I am to football what a C&E Christian is to church attendance; I watch just once or twice a year. But I watched this one and, boy, and I glad: What an ending! I have to take my heart medication now.

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That moment
: The Janet Jackson moment. What will Britney do on the Grammys to beat that?
: The FCC wanted to protect America from the penis. What about the breast? Is there a fairness doctrine for private parts?

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Hire smart bloggers
: Hey Guardian or other smart media entity in England: Hire Jackie. She's clearly a talent.
: Hey any smart ad entity in New York: Hire Hugh. He's clearly a talent.
You can find a lot of talent on these things called blogs.

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Treo warning
: Amy Langfield warns not to install the Treo 600 update yet.

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It's public radio, isn't it?
: CarTalk has dropped Real because it's so obnoxious and is now on Windows Media. [via PaidContent]
If only we could get them -- and Studio 360 -- to drop the pain-in-the-butt Audible.
Why wouldn't Public Radio just put up MP3s? What's the harm? It's free radio anyway. They want people to listen. They're surely not making any real money from Audible.
Just put it up.
In the meantime I solved my Audible problem (never could get it installed on my Treo; support was spotty and unhelpful) by getting Replay Radio and I'm just recording the shows myself.

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15 Minutes of Infamy
: The Scotsman says reputed reporter Andrew Gilligan is looking to cash in on his infamy.

Mr Gilligan is expected to start a lucrative new media career and has been linked to the Spectator, the Mail on Sunday and the Guardian. It is also understood that he is negotiating a deal to write a book.

Hey, whatcha gonna do now that you've brought down a great institution of journalism to shame and ridicule? I'm goin' to Disneyworld!

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The memorial roads not taken
: The Times publishes 10 of the almost 5,000 9/11 memorial submissions not selected and says they all will be put up on a web site, as I'd hoped. (Here is my submission).

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You are the future of Iraq
: The American authorities are publishing a newspaper for kids in Iraq and Ays scanned a copy. Included is a cartoon about reporting people with suspicious packages that turn out to be bombs. Hard place to be a child.
: In response to a comment: The paper is written in Arabic and English; Ays is showing us the English scan, for obvious reasons. We're not as multilingual as Iraqis.

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New Iraqi blogs
: New Iraqi blogs are sprouting up:
: The Iraqi Agora (that is, marketplace) is a group blog from some of the luminaries, including Salam (posting here as infrequently as he does on his own), River, Liminal, and others inside and out of Iraq.
: Khalid, formerly a member of A Family in Baghdad, now has his own blog, Tell Me a Secret.
: Iraqi Spirit is by an expat engineer.
: Road of a Nation promises to write about Iraqi reconstruction.
: Sun of Iraq posts occasionally.
: Ihath is by an expat in Canada.
: Kurdo, a Kurdish blog.

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U.N. cocktails
: John Galt of the CPA is pissed about the U.N.

U.N. personnel have been in Baghdad since Friday to assess the security situation....
Months ago, the U.N. Iraqi mission was attacked and twenty two people were killed.
Sergio Vieira De Mello was the U.N. mission chief.... De Mello removed the Coalition guards and disregarded security recommendations for his mission and people in Baghdad. He and twenty-one people died in a preventable car bomb attack. These deaths were due to negligence in ignoring the security recommendations and the arrogance which sprang from that negligence.
As usual, the U.N. cannot make a real security assessment without what we in America referred to as being “Politically Correct.” They do not recognize the situation as it is but rather as they wish it to be when viewed from cocktail circuit in Manhattan....

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Jock blogs
: I went looking to see who was blogging the Super Bowl. ESPN is (of course). And so I start reading Bill Simmons' blog and see this:

I'm going to miss Houston. Remember when the Zionists kidnapped Patty Hearst, and she started to identify with them, and pretty soon she was robbing banks? That's how I'm feeling. I like being miserable. I love traffic. I don't need to see the sun ever again. I might never leave.

The Zionists? Zionists? Yes, Patty went to work in a California kibbutz and ran a bank instead of robbed one. Man.
Jocks.

: Meanwhile, Oliver Willis is blogging Beyonce.

: UPDATE: Simmons blog now corrected, a commenter informs us. This sure beats paper, huh?

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On the air
: Zack Rosen starts Dean Radio. Smart. [via Joi Ito]

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Nip, tuck, vote
: Patti Davis says she doesn't care about whether John Kerry got botox:

When a woman runs for president and starts gaining momentum, are we going to ask if she has breast implants?

Let's remember that the color of her father's hair became an issue, too, but didn't stop him from entering the political hall of fame.

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Laws of nature and blogging
: Terry Teachout's laws of blogging. Among them:

3. Blogs without links aren’t blogs. Blogs without blogrolls aren’t blogs. Blogs without mailboxes aren’t blogs....
6. Blogging puts professionals and amateurs on an even footing. That’s why so many professional writers dislike and distrust it.
7. The whole point of a blog is that its author controls its content. That’s why no major newspaper will ever be successful at running in-house blogs: the editors won’t allow it. The smart ones will encourage their best writers to blog on their own time—and at their own risk. The dumb ones will refuse to let any of their writers blog, on or off the job....
9. Within a decade, blogs will replace op-ed pages.
10. Blogs will be to the 21st century what little magazines were to the 20th century. Their influence will be disproportionate to their circulation....
14. If you want to be noticed, you have to blog every day.
15. An impersonal blog is a contradiction in terms.

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Death jets
: FoxNews just reported that Continental canceled another flight -- this one domestic, between Washington and Houston, because of specific terrorism threats.
And today Sen. Jay Rockefeller hinted that all these threats are biological.

Asked about reports that a biological or chemical agent might be used in an attack on a U.S.-bound airline, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, said the United States would have no way to counter such moves.
"I don't think so, and that's partly the problem of not checking cargo, and it's partly the problem of biological weapons, which nobody has figured out really what to do about yet," Rockefeller told "Fox News Sunday." "Nobody has any idea about what to do about them on an airplane or on the ground."

All this would be just too absurd if we had not witnessed what we witnessed two years ago.
I'm supposed to fly to San Diego next weekend but if we hear much more of this, I'm not so sure.

: News.com.au reports:

Intelligence experts reportedly said threats could include the release of a biological agent on a plane so those aboard would spread the infection without knowing it.

: UPDATE: Washington Post story on the Continental cancelation.

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Takes all kinds
: Jackie sees the picture of the Instawife and wonders: "This makes it even more bizarre that he spends so much time blogging. I mean, would you?"

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Not reported here
: Times public editor Dan Okrent today tackles the not-reported-here syndrome at many news outlets. He explains: When somebody else breaks a big story, The Times wants to add its own reporting. But the result is sometimes that The Times doesn't get around to printing the story at all, or buries it, and thus Times readers are ill-served.
I have a very simple suggestion for how to fix this. I hate to make weblogs the cure for everything including acne, but wouldn't it be wonderful if The Times started a weblog with the sole mission of pointing to great reporting and big stories in all its competitors around the world (even including a few online competitors)? The Times edits the world for us. That's what weblogs do. The Times' kinda-sorta campaign blog is now unafraid to point to others' campaign stories, at least in its right rail. Put two and two together and, voila, thanks to this new medium you would have a great new service from The Times.

: Also noted: Okrent breaks his format to give us one more item: a link to Slate's comprehensive assault on The Times Magazine's sex-slave story and the magazine editor's response.
I consider that Okrent's first blog post.

: Also noted: Okrent got a rave review from the right-wing WorldNet Daily.

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What I want is antisocial software
: Jason Calacanis has categorized and organized his amazing, overwhelming list of friend networks. Some of them are not purely friend networks (photo weblog Buzznet; granddaddy forum site Delphi) but still, the list screams shakeout.

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Turn the spigot on
: Papa Scott helps Blogspotters turn on their damned feeds. Follow his advice.

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