The General Election Campaign Begins Here

Not This Time?

Go read the rest

C'mon, it's a cartoon, for pete's sake -- how long can it take?

The Press n' the Powerful

Greenwald:

Protecting, rather than exposing, the secrets of the powerful is the fuel of American journalism. . . . The number one rule of the standard establishment journalist is to avoid offending the powerful because the more offense they give, the fewer favors the powerful will do for the journalists. Conversely, and by logical necessity, the more journalists please the powerful, the more favors the powerful will do for them.

Watchin' Some Ads

Bob Harris makes sharp observations.

You Can Smell the Immanent Return. . . .

The Public Demands

that CrankyDoc return (see Comments in the post below). He's not ready yet, but he offers this, as Shalom requests. Best Ad Ever?

Still on hiatus

But look for the Return of CrankyDoc the Summer of 2008. I know, I know -- how ever shall we wait that long. But as Brad DeLong is fond of observing: Objects in Your Calendar are Closer than they Appear.

The Pause that Refreshes

Cranky Doc's: The Blog is going on hiatus until C-Doc figures out what to do with it. Meanwhile, if you must have some of the Doc's rich, bloggy, goodness, see him under his secret identity here.

There, now

That wasn't so bad, was it? Finals have been received from all of you now, and I'm looking forward to reading/viewing them. I really am, truth be told. I'm hoping to post final grades online (through Banner) this weekend. I'll be happy to discuss your final exams, final grades, or anything else BUT it will need to wait until the beginning of next semester -- C-Doc's heading out of town to try to get some writing done to appease his even crankier Editor, and is hoping to be as off the grid as he can be. But drop me a note after January 15, and we can find a time to meet if you'd like. Good luck with the rest of your finals, and get some rest over the break -- you've earned it. Well, most of you have. . . .

A Brief Diversion

From America's finest newspaper. I mean, of course, The Onion.

THE TOP STORIES OF 2006

1. December 15, 2006

   Thousands More Dead In Continuing Iraq Victory

2. May 24, 2006

   Al Gore Caught Warming Globe To Increase Box Office Profits

3. November 8, 2006

   Kevin Federline, Wife Divorce

4. July 6, 2006

   Ken Lay's Children Inherit 4,000 Pensions

5. August 14, 2006

   Israel Bombs Anti-Semitism Out Of Lebanon

6. November 9, 2006

   Karl Rove Accused Of Throwing Midterm Elections

7. August 5, 2006

   NASA Launches Probe To Inform Pluto Of Demotion

8. September 6, 2006

   Osama Bin Laden Takes Credit For Crocodile Hunter's Death

9. February 14, 2006

   Generous Vice President Cheney Gives Hard-Working Media Field Day

10. January 31, 2006

    Coretta Scott King's Wiretap Ends

Twenty-Five Hours Away

from the deadline seems the right time to put a moratorium on questions about the exam. So, all done. You'll be fine. Breathe. Think. Make sure you answer all parts of the question (see the question below, and re-read it). Post your exam on time (neither too early nor too late). And, seriously, you'll be fine.

A Farewell Clip

from what can be, on some days, the toughest interview on TV

A Reminder

and a gentle warning. Please do not e-mail me with exam questions; post them now on this new thread.

But read my comments so far on the old thread below before you do, and think before you ask -- please limit questions to those that you really think are important and require direction from me.

In other words, use your own judgment and know that as long as you fully answer the questions, and attend to the requirements I highlighted in the Exam Question itself (see below), you should be creative and deal with this Blog Essay in whatever manner you think most appropriate.

C-Doc is perilously close to refusing to answer any and all questions moving forward -- so again, before asking , make sure you really need an answer from the increasingly Cranky One .

A War on Blogs

Here. And more Here

(HT to Cursor)

Use this new thread

for questions about the final exam

And so it begins

A Reminder

To check in at Alana's View for all things extra-credity. . . .

Best story ever

Ahhh, the power of the internets and its infernal tubes (from the NYT):

So This Manatee Walks Into the Internet

By JACQUES STEINBERG

The skit, as scripted for the Dec. 4 installment of “Late Night With Conan O’Brien,” was about absurdist college sports mascots that the host and his writers would like to see someday.

Among them were “the Boise State Conjoined Vikings,” who had been born locked at the horns, as well as something Mr. O’Brien called “the Webcam manatee” — said to be the mascot of “F.S.U.” — which was basically someone in a manatee costume rubbing himself or herself provocatively in front of a camera (to the tune of the 1991 hit “I Touch Myself”). Meanwhile a voyeur with a lascivious expression watched via computer.

Who knew that life would soon imitate art.

At the end of the skit, in a line Mr. O’Brien insists was ad-libbed, he mentioned that the voyeur (actually Mark Pender, a member of the show’s band) was watching www.hornymanatee.com. There was only one problem: as of the taping of that show, which concluded at 6:30 p.m., no such site existed. Which presented an immediate quandary for NBC: If a viewer were somehow to acquire the license to use that Internet domain name, then put something inappropriate on the site, the network could potentially be held liable for appearing to promote it.

In a pre-emptive strike inspired as much by the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission as by the laws of comedy, NBC bought the license to hornymanatee.com, for $159, after the taping of the Dec. 4 show but before it was broadcast.

By yesterday afternoon hornymanatee.com — created by Mr. O’Brien’s staff and featuring images of such supposedly forbidden acts as “Manatee-on-Manatee” sex (again using characters in costumes) — had received approximately 3 million hits, according to NBC. Meanwhile several thousand of Mr. O’Brien’s viewers have also responded to his subsequent on-air pleas that they submit artwork and other material inspired by the aquatic mammals, and the romantic and sexual shenanigans they imagine, to the e-mail address conan@hornymanatee.com.

One viewer sent a poem. Mr. O’Brien asked James Lipton, the haughty host of “Inside the Actors Studio” on Bravo, to read it on “Late Night.” It included the lines: “I want to freak thy blubber rolls,” and “The product of our ecstasy will be half man and half a-’tee.” After that a curtain opened, and Mr. Lipton gamely danced with the manatee character. Another viewer wrote a song, which Mr. Pender, the band’s trumpet player, crooned to the character. Set to the heavy metal band AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long,” it included the lyrics “She had big black eyes/no discernible thighs” and “The waves start shakin’/the ocean was quakin’/my pelvis was achin’. ”

Reached by telephone at NBC yesterday, Mr. O’Brien said he was stunned and overwhelmed by the viewers’ response to what had initially been a throwaway line, and by what that response, collectively, suggested about how the digital world was affecting traditional media like television.

“We couldn’t have done this two years ago, three years ago,” Mr. O’Brien said. “It’s sort of this weird comedy dialogue with the audience.”

He added, “I still have an abacus.”

Regardless, Mr. O’Brien and his staff are digitally savvy enough to seize an opportunity when it presents itself, particularly in the aftermath of such Internet comedy phenomena as “Lazy Sunday,” a filmed clip from “Saturday Night Live” that drew large audiences on the Web last year, initially as a bootleg. After the taping of the Dec. 4 show, Mr. O’Brien said the show’s executive producer, Jeff Ross, informed him of the problem, then asked him whether he wanted to mute the mention of the site or buy the Web address.

“We didn’t want to take it out,” Mr. Ross said yesterday, “so we bought it.”

In explaining to the audience the next night what he and his writers had done, Mr. O’Brien marveled, “For $159, NBC, the network that brought you ‘Meet the Press,’ Milton Berle and the nation’s first commercial television station became the proud owner of www.hornymanatee.com.”

Now, by clicking on “tour,” visitors to the site are drawn into a netherworld of mock-graphic images with titles like “Mature Manatee” (with a walker of course) and “Fetish” (a manatee in a bondage costume) as well as dozens of viewer submissions, including “Manatee & Colmes,” a spoof of “Hannity & Colmes” on Fox News.

Mr. O’Brien said he knew he was on to something when, on Wednesday night, he was at a Christmas party in the lobby of a friend’s building and a waiter approached him with a platter of salmon and toast points. When Mr. O’Brien politely declined, he said the waiter drew in close and whispered in his ear, “My compliments to the horny manatee.”

As he prepared last night’s show, Mr. O’Brien said he was planning to give the bit its first night off, although he was confident it would soon return.

“We don’t want the entire show to be ‘Late Night With Horny Manatee,’ ” he said. “Though, of course, it will become that eventually.”

If you're having trouble

with the Perlmutter article, try here