The Only Game in Town

On September 7, just as the Fed moved in on Fannie Mac, I wrote:

And perhaps the worst part? Aside from the fact that we're now laying the hugest pile of crap at the feet of future generations, if I had to bet, no one's going to lift a finger to stop the ongoing slaughter that's only going to be much more brutal now.

Boy, was I wrong. Not only has the brutality been much worse than I forecast, but they sure have lifted a finger, as we've seen with this disaster of an almost trillion buck bailout.

The thing that gets me is I'm sitting here listening to this blowhard Suze Orman on CNN, a so-called financial planner, who's wildly popular given the amount of tube time she gets. What galls me is how heavily invested she is in this ponzi scheme; all of her advice revolves around still staying engaged in this system. Where alternate methods would now seem to be the way out, she makes it seem as if this is the only way - to keep monitoring for good buys at fire sale prices, reducing credit card debt, etc. Basics that anyone with common sense should know.

But what about those alternatives? Localism is never spoken about in mass-media, nor is micro-finance, two ways communities can fight back economically.

Conglomeration is another. The only way economically disadvantaged communities have to fight back is by voting with their dollars. Buying from local merchants is only the beginning - for just as the empire of neo-colonial global capital extracts resources (ie: capital, human resources) out of communities and concentrates it in a very tiny percentage of the political donor class/economic elite is a system, so must localism be one.

But everyone's so invested in "the market" that they can't see anything else. The ones who may not have a lifestyle you or I would enjoy, such as communal living, are looked upon as wackos. I think a lot of them are nuts (for the most part, harmless nuts), but I also think the underlying premise - a non-mainstream way to opt out of this system - is valid.

From an economic standpoint, they've understood that conglomerating is a key ingredient. When will our local communities ever wake up? On the other hand, we can't ignore reality and say the communities are really "ours" until we fight economically, can we?

Katt Breaking Down Gas Prices

Hanky the Terrorist, Uncle Scam and Mega Media

A week or two ago I was watching Charlie Rose and he had that basset hound Henry Kissinger on, and the inevitable "Iraq question(s)" come up. The parallels; escalation, insurgency, civil war...

But it's absolutely amazing how Charlie can be so off point and more, a softballer. I mean, he's the ONLY talk show that will guest Chomsky, which just goes to show how deep the "Jewish mafia" runs in mega-corp controlled mass-media. Btw, for anyone who doubts the Janus faced history of Jews in Hollywood, just read Gabler's, "An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood." Jesus Christ (how's that for irony?), I thought my peeps were fucked up in terms of self-image. It cracks me up - wryly, of course - how, whenever I speak on a panel or at a seminar, inevitably I meet up with wide-eyed film students, hoping against hope that theirs is the lucky lotto number....

Shudder.

These poor kids - they spend tens of thousands of dollars on a film school "education" but can't tell you who this is...


let alone this dude


and god send money should they know who THIS is...


...cause I'll need a Costco sized bundle of tp to wipe my ass from the shock shit.

So. Charlie "sometimes on point" Rose has Henry, "I systematically TERRORIZED millions of mud people got a Nobel Prize out of it and some fat ass speaking engagements," Kissinger on. Asking the Iraq questions. The parallels.

THE PARALLELS???

I got your parallels, hanky, ya punk ass beeeatch, hiding behind your rat-bastard nixonian presidential seal while pushing buttons that terrorize; how about some donkey balls parallel to your chin muthaphuka??? How about THIS for a parallel, that you ILLEGALLY and sytematically TERRORIZED millions of Asians via the TET fucking offensive, you putrid piece of regurgitated bukake?

"The terrorists," "the war on terror" ... Parallel this: We're the laughing stock of the world because of this embarrassment of an administration.

Just as with the nixon administration.

I think this is the great trick of uncle scam; the games he sets up are basically elementary - taking a page from Goebbels and another from Bernays while being later deconstructed by Herman & Chomsky:

1. Control messaging via mass-media. Check.

2. Make sure the freeways that govern access to political power are constantly jammed with over 30,000 lobbyists, each wtih a man purse of laundered money. Check.

3. #2 also serves another purpose; it effectivly cuts off the .000001% of the riff-raff mud peeps that have a smidgen of power.

3. Have an endless supply of diversions - concocted or not - that mis-direct the laity and can be amply farmed out to #1. Check.

4. Liberal (in the conservative sense of that word) mentioning of buzz words/phrases; "freedom," "democracy," "America loves freedom," "war on terror," etc., while making Hegel twist in his grave by antithetically citing "the enemy," and that, "they're jealous of our freedom."

5. Lather, rinse... you now the drill.

It goes without saying so I"ll say it; sell-outs like this reprobate


not to in any way be corn-fused with THIS dude


are a necessary part of uncle scam's equation as well.

It's one of the most energy-sapping things to watch, the way these devils run their games.

I'ts also hard to critique when most of us are so self-involved with our own personal crap, because while the game is basically fundamental, it's macro. And we're not trained to think macro, much less long-term, much much less, critically, much much much less analogically.

For ONCE I'd like to see our mainstream journalists grow some nuts - JUST ONCE, so that I can have a smile fest for a minute just watching human puss sacks like Kissinger squirm in his grease. This is why Howard Stern, despite ... well, you know, he's Howard, it's why things like sending Stuttering John out to completgely deflate pompous celebs were fucking brilliant. Sasha Baron Cohen ain't got nothin' on Stern.

For someone like me, born in Hollywood (Kaiser, right on Sunsent), mass media's in my DNA. Just not in the, "I'll-degrade-myself-to-sub-species-level-AND-eat-mega-corp-conglomo-mierda-to-even
have-what-I-think-is-a-shot-at-working-FOR-FREE-on-your-plantation," sense.

Hanky, do humanity a favor; shove a burnt weenie sandwich up yer butt so that weasels rip your flesh to get at it.

Allusions and wordplay in this post: At least two. I think. (I'm particularly proud of the last one...)

A "New" Spin on Mass Media Conglomeration

check this out. newspapers are now jumping onto the citizen journalist bandwagon.

whoopee friggin' DOO.

newspapers are no different from any of the other mass media merchants in that they don't get it or they can't execute efficiently.

they don't get it - meaning, isn't the fact that this story is only appearing NOW, in 2006, proof enough??? mass media news simply can't seem to pry open their minds and look around at the paradigm shift occuring at this very moment in the music industry. they can't think, let alone see, analogically, therefore they can't draw lessons from it.

they can't execute efficiently - mass media, by definition, must carpet bomb on a large scale in order to cut operating expenses. (thus, the stereotypical centralized news source - a national desk - that farms out to its local channels.) this is one of the dynamics i talk about to indie filmmakers, that because big studios are over-concerned with mass market capture, the only approach that makes sense for indies is to target a niche market that's being ignored or under-served by the studios.

that last principle applies to any industry dominated by mega corporations.

anyway, this latest attempt to co-opt grassroots appeal is anything but new; after all, how long has "america's funniest home videos" been around???

-jp


Gannett To Change Its Papers' Approach

By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 7, 2006; D01

Gannett Co., the nation's largest newspaper chain, is radically changing the way its papers gather and present news by incorporating elements of reader-created "citizen journalism," mining online community discussions for stories and creating Internet databases of calendar listings and other non-news utilities.

The McLean company has 90 newspapers, including USA Today, the nation's largest. Like all major newspaper firms, Gannett has watched circulation and advertising revenue slide over the past decade, as readers turn to television and the Internet for news and information.

Gannett is attempting to grab some of the Internet mojo of blogs, community e-mail groups and other ground-up news sources to bring back readers and fundamentally change the idea of what newspapers have been for more than a century. The attempt to involve readers in news-gathering is part of a larger plan that also calls for Gannett to merge its newspaper and online operations into single units to speed delivery of news and improve its offerings to advertisers.

At Gannett's Des Moines Register, for example, editor Carolyn Washburn has moved desks to re-organize her newsroom. She created a Data Desk to build reader-searchable databases on topics from restaurant listings to a recent mumps outbreak. Though USA Today will not undergo a similar overhaul, it has merged its newspaper and online staffs.

Gannett's ideas are shared by a growing number of people in the industry who believe that news organizations have driven away readers by becoming too imperial, too distant and not fast enough to respond to reader needs and desires.

While other newspapers, including The Washington Post, have aggressively expanded their online presence or merged it with their print newsrooms, Gannett's move is the industry's first wide-scale overhaul, in name and purpose.

"It's pretty big," said Michael Maness, Gannett's vice president of strategic planning. "It's a fairly fundamental restructuring of how we go about news and information on a daily basis."

The most intriguing aspect of Gannett's plan is the inclusion of non-journalists in the process, drawing on specific expertise that many journalists do not have. In a test at Gannett's newspaper in Fort Myers, Fla., the News-Press, from readers such as retired engineers, accountants and other experts was solicited to examine documents and determine why it cost so much to connect new homes to water and sewer lines. The newspaper compiled the data and wrote a number of reader-assisted articles. As a result, fees were cut and an official resigned. Maness called it a "pro-am," approach, referring to a golf tournament in which professionals play alongside amateurs.

"I am very impressed with the Fort Myers" experiment, said Jay Rosen, a New York University journalism professor. "If that becomes the direction at a lot of Gannett papers, we could learn a lot from that."

Elements of Gannett's plan are seen elsewhere.

Rosen recently founded the Web site NewAssignment.net, which bills itself as "an experiment in open-source reporting" and is being partly funded by the Reuters news agency. Another Web site, NowPublic.com, claims of 31,000 citizen reporters in 130 countries who post news, photos and video to the site. NowPublic reporters were active in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

Gannett has been testing its new system at a few of its newspapers since July. Now, all of the company's newspapers are being urged to make the transition quickly.

Changes began with newsroom labels. Newsrooms divide coverage by traditional topics, such as national, foreign, local, features and sports.

Gannett's plan renames the newsroom an "Information Center" and divides it into seven areas: public service, digital, data, community conversation, local, custom content and multimedia. In a memo to employees Thursday, Gannett Chairman Craig Dubow said the company's news will be "platform agnostic," meaning it will be delivered however the reader desires -- on paper, on the Web, on a mobile device and so on.

Faced with declining average daily circulation since 1987, newspapers have been struggling to reinvent themselves and stay relevant. Before the Internet, many newspapers tried to look brighter and less staid, following the lead of USA Today, as a flurry of redesigns swept the industry. More newspapers began using color photographs, colored boxes and other design devices, and articles became shorter. Circulation did not improve. Now, newspapers look to the Internet.

Gannett's stock peaked in spring 2004 at more than $90 a share, but steadily declined to $52 a share during the summer. The stock has been rising since, closing yesterday at $58.77 a share, up 75 cents.

Set Sail...

This is for all of my ranting and raving on subjects that... I want to rant and rave about.

"Deep Thoughts"? Kinda. Sorta. Sometimes. Maybe.

A theme? Hmmm, maybe, inequality. But if I stray, so be it.

That's it. Nothing witty, incisive, curmudgeonly, smarmy, post-post-modern... yet. Instead, I'll take a note from my sista Van in Can, and for now give you a capsulized "What JP's about"in the form of a Top 10 off the top of my head...

1. I love to laugh and run the gamut - self-deprecating, political, toilet/animal house, cerebral thinking person's (I guess Carlin and Bruce), to the classics - Foxx, Carlin - and the neo-classics - Rock, Lawrence, Tucker, Chappelle. Huge Stern fan, altho I know he's problematic at times, he is consistently entertaining - from a male gaze pov certainly - and delivers the most incredible interviews beyond anything out there. Just listen to his interview with Jose Canseco regarding his book, "Juiced," if you don't believe me.

2. Movies. I was born in Hollywood, right on Sunset Blvd. So in a away I am a true child of "The Business," but don't believe the hype. Surf to my blog on filmmaking at: http://sibmovies.blogspot.com/ to see what I mean.

3. I like entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs distinguish themselves from business people. Can you think of how they do this?

4. I'm really against the corporatization of the world. EVERYTHING is SPAM SPAM SPAM, SPAM THIS, SPAM THAT. Geezus, I feel like I live in Hawaii. What next, a brand for homeless people? What about: "Disenfran: For the unlucky in all of us..."

5. Sports - Hoops, football, boxing, UFC, tennis. Greatest athletes: Ali, Magic, Jordan, Isiah Thomas, Jack Tatum, Ilie Nastase, John McEnroe. Special mention: Royce Gracie getting an opponent to tap out while turned upside down. (He did it with an arm bar) Most under-rated: Larry Holmes.

6. Politics - I should keep up more, but I like it. But I don't like what's going on these days...

7. Reading - Avid reader. Don't read fiction anymore, although my fave novel is "Invisible Man." Fave entrepreneurial story: J.B. Strasser's and Laurie Becklund's, "Swoosh: The Unauthorized Story of Nike and the Men who Played There." If you want to get really pissed, check out David Cay Johnston's, "Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else." And the "liberal media" tag? Doesn't apply - Johnston's a registered Republican. Gotcha!

8. Related to #4, mass media - more accurately, the relationship between mega-corporations, mass media and consumers, and how that defines free flow of info on a mass scale. Seven mega-corporations now control the vast majority of mass media worldwide: Film, music, television, radio, Internet, newspapers, books, and magazines. They are: AOL-Time Warner, Viacom, Walt Disney, NBC/Universal, Sony, News Corp, and Bertelsmann. Of note, the wireless industry is considered by many to be the next media pipeline, and is now exhibiting the same pattern of consolidation with the recent acquisition (as of February, 2004) of AT&T Wireless by Cingular Wireless, creating the largest wireless entity yet. Later, Sprint and Nextel merged as a result of the market pressures. Also noteworthy is the fact that as of midyear, 2004, Vivendi Universal became NBC/Universal and in reality a General Electric company. Thus, a mega-corporation was assimilated by another, larger entity. Readers are urged to seek out a copy of the PBS produced segment of “Frontline,” entitled, “The Merchants of Cool,” one of the best documentaries on marketing in the modern age that explains the relationship between mega-corporations, mass-media and consumers. For more, see:
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool

9. I like the gals at www.snarkywood.com - cruel and chicken-haided as they come, more often than not funny.

10. I tried to avoid this because it's trite. Oh well. Some of my fave flicks: Il Conformista (perennial top 3 feature film), The Eye of the Storm (PBS), Thirst (PBS), Lone Wolf and Cub (series), Zatoichi (series), That Obscure Object of Desire, A Place in the Sun, Giant, The Wild Bunch, Junior Bonner, Vertigo (the Hollywood studio system's most intensely personal film) The Godfather, Network, Chameleon Street, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (financed by Quaker Oats Co.!), The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (Yes, Tony Randall's in yellow face), Chinatown, Brian DePalma's Scarface, Stranger Than Paradise, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Nightmare on Elm Street, Taxi Driver, New York New York,The King of Comedy, Raging Bull,

Bonus item - #11. - My dad was born in Hawaii, and I have relatives there. I love tikis.

Ok, I gotta post this or else it'll never get "borned"...