Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

If you’re a redneck, from the South, or even a Red State Republican, you may be asking yourself, “What’s a chutzpah?” And what’s beyond it if we haven’t gotten to it yet? Well shmedricks and shmeges, the online dictionary.com definition of chutzpah is:

chutz‧pa [khoot-spuh, hoot–] –noun Slang.

n : (Yiddish) unbelievable gall; insolence; audacity; unmitigated effrontery or impudence; nerve.

You can look up colorful, funny Yiddish words you’ve heard in a Mel Brooks comedy movie, or maybe on The View, at the online Yiddish Dictionary.

So what’s the big idea? Just that a professor of Political science at DePaul University in Chicago, Norman Finkelstein, has written a book by this title, Beyond Chutzpah. The basic idea from what I heard today on Democracy Now’s radio broadcast, is that many who criticize Israel are quickly labelled anti-Semetic by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League… in a League of their own, no doubt.

Norman Finkelstein: “Every time Israel comes under international pressure, as it did recently because of the war crimes committed in Lebanon, it steps up the claim of anti-Semitism, and all of Israel’s critics are anti-Semitic. 1974, the ADL, the Anti-Defamation League, puts out a book called The New Anti-Semitism. 1981, the Anti-Defamation League puts out a book, The New Anti-Semitism. And then, again in 2000, Abraham Foxman and people like Phyllis Chesler, they put out these books called The New Anti-Semitism. So the use of the charge “anti-Semitism” is pretty conventional whenever Israel comes under attack, and frankly it has no content whatsoever nowadays.

If you open up, like, Phyllis Chesler’s book, The New Anti-Semitism, she says Jewish feminists are anti-Semites, NPR is anti-Semitic, BBC is anti-Semitic, Los Angeles Times is anti-Semitic, New York Times is anti-Semitic, Washington Post is anti-Semitic. Everybody is anti-Semitic. The term is devoid of any content. Anyone who ever criticizes Israel is anti-Semitic.”

Finkelstein continued by pointing out many rampant comparisons by US war hawks of their favorite terrorist bad guys of the week to Hitler and Nazis is actually a form of Holocaust denial.

NF: “You heard the speech by Rumsfeld, where he says that Iraq is like the Nazis in the 1930s. Now, remember, the tenet of the Holocaust industry is, never compare the Holocaust to anything else. Never compare, and if you compare, they say you’re a Holocaust denier. But that side is always comparing. The Mufti of Jerusalem was Hitler. Nasser was Hitler. Saddam Hussein was Hitler. Hezbollah is now Hitler. Iran is Hitler. Hamas is Hitler. Iraq is Hitler. They’re the worst Holocaust deniers in the world, by their own definition. They’re always comparing.”

from the Democracy Now! interview, August 30, 2006 

It takes some chutzpah to report the facts of today’s news, and maybe Don Asmussen BAD REPORTER is the solutionator. The Bad Reporter mangles current events in illustrated comic format twice a week with all the bloody chutzpah of news in a blender. In Asmussen’s world, the planet pluto could be a Holocaust Denier. Who knows? The Bad Reporter may be the illegitimate hier to the Dave Barry humor columnist throne. Whatever he is, I find the flavor of his chutzpah maztoh balls very good and refreshing.

“NO PHOTOGRAPHY” – Hassan Sabbah Castle Originally uploaded by DD/MM/YYYY.

If you’ve ever wondered about the legal and ethical do’s and don’ts of photography, Bert P. Krages II, an attorney and photographer, posts information on his web site, and authored a book, Legal Handbook for Photographers. The online, downloadable article, The Photographers Right, is partially in response to rights violations connected with the war on terror.

No Photography Originally uploaded by escapekiken.

No photography allowed Originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes.

Conservatives do not like Woodstock. Perhaps it bothers them that the large gathering of people was not under their control, and so it must be a threat of some kind. But get over it small minded ones, you who see positives in our marvelous invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. Surely you can see the good that came out of the 3 Days of Peace and Music also known as Woodstock, 37 years ago.

• Outdoor rock concert venue testing ground
• Now Bethel Woods Center for the Arts
• Charles Schultz character
• Documentary film enabled Steve Ross to launch Warner Communications, later Time-Warner.
• Peace Sign Pendants

Half a century ago, on August 11, 1956, an Oldsmobile convertible driven by Jackson Pollock, who was drunk, hit a tree in the Springs, killing the artist and a passenger.

– Peter Schjeldahl, “American Abstract”, The New Yorker

This is an excellent write up on the power of Pollock and the film by Ed Harris is also mentioned. Pollock, the movie is enough to make any drinker swear off the bottle… at least for a few days.

Liquids can be dangerous, as yesterday was a red terror alert day, for fear liquids and gels might be used to assemble terrorist bombs on trans Atlantic air travel.

Everyone in Tinseltown is buzzing about the war Israel is waging against Hamas, Hezbollah, Syrians, Iranians, Moslems, and perhaps Scottish Highlanders. Hollywood news sources report that a single malted Mel “Braveheart” Gibson declared, “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world, and Jews have just invaded Scotland! That’s it! I’ve had it!”

Could Braveheart 2 be far behind?

More blog news on malty Mel: Huffington, Markoe.

Children of all ages, now it's fun time! Monkey Vortex is avant-garde Internet Radio Theater. Above is a Flash animation recently completed to provide visual shine to the Monkey Vortex chant. Need a new perspective? You'll find one in the Monkey Vortex.

In today’s news, Norman Pearlstine, a long time top manager at Time Inc., the magazine division of Time-Warner, will be joining The Carlyle Group a Washington, D.C. based global private equity investment firm with more than USD$40 billion of equity capital under management, as a senior advisor.

I briefly met Mr. Pearlstine while at Time Warner, when hired to work on their experimental “Full Service Network” interactive television effort in the early 90’s. When introduced as a technical lead for the New York office, he half jokingly asked me, “Are you the one who is going to save us?” I good naturedly replied that I’d try my best. We knew we were in over our heads.

The Time Warner Cable FSN project was a technical boondoggle in deep trouble and would not be able to launch their tests at Celebration, FL for the scheduled date 4 months away. From what I gather, something was launched over 2 years after our meeting, but by that time broadband internet was all the rage, and TW was eying AOL as their path to interactivity. Back in those days, I advised TW to use the Internet as a channel on their interactive cable TV service, but the idea was dismissed, although not by Pearlstine himself.

In the days leading up to the FSN’s proposed Spring 1993 launch date, I had a longer discussion with Walter Isaacson, who was then the Managing Editor of Time magazine. In order to protect my immediate superiors at Time Warner Interactive, I was not able to disclose to him how feeble the FSN effort actually was. How would that look in a Time magazine article!? Even if I had told Isaacson of the many flaws in the system, I’m not sure what good it would have done, but I regret not having a deeper, more honest discussion. So much for office politics and paranoia.

Today I continue to work as the consultant behind the consultants, advisor to the advisors. I spend more time in the real world, hands on in leading edge places, from which many of the upper echelon are insulated and unaware.

More my style this oddball surrealist painter John Wotipka is. I might go to the upcoming opening, but then do I really want to meet the weirdo who did these paintings? He could be onto something: rendering the mystery of insect thoughts, with the nanotechnologists studying how their tiny brains operate.