When you have a state-by-state map of the likelihood that traffic police will be offered bribes in Mexico, you go with it.
La mordida, mapped
Filed under Above the Law, absurdity, bribery, human rights, map, Mexico, my bothered mind, pandering, You go with it
Glad I’m here
I know this isn’t very intellectually stimulating, but my back yard in Santa Barbara is somewhere you’d like to be on a day this nice. Believe me.
Filed under You go with it
Just like The Onion, if you don’t starve
By the lights of the Samuel Johnson dictum, there are millions upon millions of blockheads writing for no money in these digital times. I suppose to a small extent I am one of them, blogging with no direct (if substantial indirect) recompense. But there’s a limit to everything, even blockheadedness and self-parody, and I think this advertisement on craigslist (“Writers Wanted for Online Political Satirical Publication (Anywhere in US)” ) pretty much marks the border beyond which everything is so obviously stupid and greedy and absurd as to defy further satirization. Here’s the nub of the pitch:
The Washington Fancy is looking for writers for an online political satire publication. We are looking for energetic, creative, humorous, and fun writers who will parody current political news in a light and fresh manner. Please send a resume as well as a sample article that demonstrates political satire. Unfortunately, seeing that this is a brand new venture, we are unable to offer compensation for articles at this time.
This is clearly an unparalleled opportunity, considering that the publication “will double in size every month and skyrocket in views.” And to be part of this skyrocketing fancy, one need only write trenchant political satire and be willing to starve for an indeterminate period of time. Maybe until AOL decides to buy the thing. Hey, wait … where do I send my resume again?
Filed under Uncategorized
Sir Weinerdog
When you have a Dachshund in chain mail, you really, absolutely, totally go with it.
Filed under Uncategorized, You go with it
Friends and lawyers
Clearly, most lawyers are out of step with digital reality. Bar rules are so specific they define almost everything an attorney does and everyone he can speak to outside the bathroom. This specificity in regard to allowed conduct is at marked odds with the Wild West ethos of the Internet and social networking, which creates myriad problems when law and InterWebs meet. It also creates funny blog posts, like this one at Above the Law, about the difficulties and perils lawyers face when they send Facebook friend requests to clients of other lawyers, or to people who aren’t clients, or to people who are suing their own clients. Read it all the way through, and you’ll either be happy that you never went to law school, or, if you’re one of my lawyerly Facebook friends, you’ll be wondering why anyone thinks this is funny or worth writing about. That’s the thing about law school; it really does teach you to think like a lawyer.
Filed under judges, legal settlements
The Walrus and the murderer
When you have a cover story written by a Canadian murderer
, you go with it. Especially if it’s in a magazine as great as The Walrus.
Filed under human rights, magazines, media, tangents, You go with it
Magazines, wristwatches and prophylaxis
I’d missed this piece by Steve Lagerfeld, editor of the Wilson Quarterly, when it was posted in March, but I think it a fine head-scratcher 
about the dilemma facing print magazines in digital times. But that’s not why I’m suggesting you look at “Why a Magazine is Like a Wristwatch.” I think you should read this piece all the way through for its last line, which is a wonderfully unexpected doozy for the Wilson Quarterly, which is a wonderful and important publication that has never, to my knowledge, been described with the adjective “racy.”
Filed under magazines, media, Wilson Quarterly
The lion of Forbes
Over at Forbes, Jeff Bercovici’s intrepid take on this or that media happening is usually worth reading because his work evinces a combination of reportage and provocative but thoughtful opinion that is seldom seen on the InterWebs. Here (“The Daily Beast/Newsweek Profitable in 2-3 Years? Hmmm.”) he’s questioning the notion that the combined Newsweek/The Daily Beast is headed toward brea
king even anytime soon, and his approach is rooted in the two basic questions of accountability journalism: Does what you’re saying comport with documentary evidence? And does what you’re saying today match with what you said yesterday? Nonjournalist readers may wonder why
I suggest this ordinary-seeming blog post requires an intrepid journalist. The answer: NewsBeast head editress Tina Brown is a real talent and interesting person who treats her people well and is one of the few sources of paying journalism jobs going right now. And a journalist never knows when he’s going to want a job. Unconsciously or very consciously, media critics are always balancing the value of the story they’re working against the possibility that it will come back in the future to devour their professional prospects. So an awful lot of media criticism is full of pulled punches. Even though his style and tone have nothing to do with snark or rant, I can’t remember Bercovici ever pulling a one.
Filed under media
David Carr on Matt Drudge
When you have David Carr writing glowingly about Matt Drudge, you go with him. Carr, I mean.
Filed under David Carr, Drudge Report, Matt Drudge, media
Fallows in Appland
When you have Jim Fallows explaining the art of software reviewing,
you go with him.
Filed under Uncategorized
John Mecklin, writer/editor 