The ‘T’ Stands For Toy

Posted on January 27, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Is it time for Bostonians to finally admit that the first public transit system in the nation is now the worst public transit system in the nation?

Boston Globe report:

Once again, delays leave MBTA riders out in cold

A day after equipment failures left thousands of people shivering on platforms in subzero weather, the MBTA stationed extra mechanics and supervisors throughout the system, ran trolleys and subways overnight, and idled commuter rail locomotives, so that they would all be ready to start in the freezing cold yesterday morning. But thousands of commuters were again left waiting.

That’s just this week’s tally . . .  so far.

(MBTA Guide to WinterTime Travel on the T here, for all the good it will do you.)

The truth is, day in and day out the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority is a joke of a public transportation system, put to shame by New York, Washington, Chicago, Atlanta, you name it.

From the Globe report:

“There’s sort of a combination of frustration and disgusted resignation, and I think people are just sick of the excuses,’’ said Paul Massari, who rides commuter rail from Salem to Boston’s North Station and bikes the final leg to his job in Cambridge.

Massari said he has not had an on-time train in two weeks. Monday and again yesterday he said he waited about 15 to 20 minutes beyond the posted time for his inbound train, a hassle made more frustrating in the bitter cold. His wait was further aggravated, he said, when neither online service alerts nor the countdown sign at the station gave accurate information.

The Twitterati aren’t anyer happy about the T’s performance than Massari is:

Blogs and social media such as Twitter and Facebook have given people an amplified and immediate voice for airing service concerns. The T has taken a pounding on Twitter lately. Hardly unusual yesterday were tweets such as: “1 hour and 45 mins later, I’m finally walking into my building. #mbta you’re the worst. Ever.’’ and “MBTA I really . . . hate your gutts [sic]! We are in a fight!’’

Let’s face it: The only transit systems that might possibly be more pathetic than Boston’s are:

1) The Los Angeles subway system, which goes approximately nowhere and which will cost somewhere between $4 and $6 billion to extend nine miles, according to LA-based The Transport Politic website.

2) The Cincinnati subway system, which doesn’t actually exist because they laid the wrong-gauge track. Not to mention laid it out east-west (useless) instead of north-south (useful).

So, to review: The MBTA is superior to a couple of non-existent transit systems.

Have a nice ride.

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Li Says Na To Wozniacki

Posted on January 27, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Say, that was some war of attrition between Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki and China’s Li Na in the Australian Open semifinal, yeah?

From the Sydney Morning Herald report:

Great leap forward: Li Na through to Australian Open final

Chinese tennis moved into the world spotlight today when Li Na became the first player from the country to reach a grand slam final.

Li, 28, battled world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki for two hours, 35 minutes before clinching the semi-final 3-6 7-5 6-3.

The 20-year-old Dane had plenty of chances in the second set to win, but she couldn’t close against the Pride of The People’s Republic, who seemed to have more nerve and more resolve as the match wore on.

Watch out, Kim Clisters – who right now is leading Vera Zvonareva 6-3, 4-3 (up a break) in the other semifinal.

UPDATE: Clisters won 6-3, 6-3.

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Boston Globe To Keith Olbermann: Good Riddance!

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Tuesday’s Boston Globe featured an odd little editorial with the odder headline:

Olbermann: Requiem for a Foxy liberal

The Globe editors contend that fighting fire with fire is too, well, inflammatory:

It was Olbermann whose increasingly partisan rants helped transform MSNBC from a neutral news channel to a left-wing counterpart to the Fox News Channel. The move was good for MSNBC’s ratings, but not for political dialogue; suddenly, the angry extremes of talk were no longer restricted to Fox.

They say that like it’s a bad thing.

Preferable to Olbermann’s hammer-and-tongue approach, the Globeniks say, is this:

A group like Media Matters for America, which meticulously documents and fact-checks the content of Fox News, is a better antidote to any nutty Glenn Beck tirade than an equal-and-opposite reaction a few channels down.

I dunno: Is there really all that much daylight between born-again liberal David Brock, who runs Media Matters, and boring-again Keith Olbermann?

Not to get technical about it at a time like this.

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Dead Blogging The State Of The Union Address

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Barack Obama was at his posing-for-a-bust-of-himself best in Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, and GOP Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Roadmap) delivered an appropriately tight-lipped response, which included this statement:

Washington should not be in the business of picking winners and losers.

He’s right. It’s the business of the chin-strokerati to pick winners and losers.

Consequently, here’s the hardworking staff’s handy Clip ‘n’ Save SOTU Scorecard.

Winners                                                            Losers

Clean Energy                                                      Big Oil

Science/Math                                                    TV

Hard work/discipline                                      PR/Fame

Race to the Top                                                No Child Left Behind

Governors                                                        Capitol Hill

Students                                                           Bankers

Good teachers                                                 Bad teachers

Illegals’ children                                             Tea Party

Taxpayers                                                        Tax accountants

Fiscal responsibility                                      Deficit spending

Doctors                                                            Medical malpractice lawyers

Children/schools                                           Wealthiest 2% of population

Current Social Security recipients              Future Social Security recipients

Job counselors                                                Federal bureaucrats

At least that’s the tally in ObamaWorld.

Kindly forward your RyanWorld scorecards soonest.

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Banner Days For European Museums?

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

From Monday’s New York Times:

European museums are reeling from culture shock these days. Long reliant on government subsidies, they avoided the layoffs, salary cuts and ticket increases that struck American museums hard in 2009 when the endowments upon which they depend plunged with the financial crisis. But now European arts institutions are facing a squeeze too: government subsidies are falling and corporate donations have dwindled as the economic crisis spreads. The combination is forcing even the grandest museums to seek new revenue sources.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris:

Doge’s Palace, Venice:

Vulgari.

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Keith Olbermann Is A Serious Twit(terer)

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Deposed MSNBC anchor Keith Oldnewsmann – sorry, Olbermann – has taken to Twitter to lick his wounds.

From the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog:

After Conan O’Brien left NBC he turned to Twitter to build a fresh fanbase and keep in touch with old viewers; now Keith Olbermann, who recently left his show on MSNBC, seems to be doing the same thing.

Earlier today, Olbermann issued the tweet “At exactly 8 Eastern tonight I will issue my first tweet. Well, other than THIS one :)”

Around 8 p.m. tonight, the tweet came: “Citizens Of The Free World: Greetings! …….. (more to come)”

As per always with Olbermann.

What hasn’t yet come, though, is an Olbermannly response to Fox Newshound Glenn Beck:

There had been Web speculation that Olbermann would use his electronic pulpit to fire back at Fox’s Glenn Beck, who criticized the former MSNBC host on Monday.

“You can handle mediocre ratings if the guy is not a total pain in the ass,” Beck said about Olbermann. “But from every indication Keith Olbermann is the biggest pain in the ass in the world.”

Hey! The Biggest Pain in the Ass in the World could be a regular feature on Keith’s new show on – where – TV Land?

Meanwhile, back at the WSJ, columnist Bret Stephens has this column:

Why I’ll Miss Keith Olbermann

Because, Stephens says, “America does better when its political debates descend into honest brawls,” and Olbermann is nothing if not a brawler.

And a bawler, if his Twitter feed is any indication.

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Surreality TV, Motherhood Division

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Apparently, one aberration isn’t enough for reality TV programs these days.

Sunday’s New York Times featured a piece headlined, “. . . And Baby Makes Reality TV.” It chronicles the burgeoning field of reality TV shows that depict modern-day motherhood as a cautionary tale, from “16 and Pregnant” to “Teen Mom 2” to “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant” to “Pregnant and in Peril.”

But here’s what especially struck the hardworking staff:

Viewers who naïvely thought that baby stories would provide a cuddly cushion of relief in between fright fests like “Hoarders” or “Intervention” are in for a shock. On cable any show with the word “baby” or “pregnant” in the title should probably carry a warning. Real births and re-enactments of labors gone awry on “Born on a Bad Day,” or the “I’m Pregnant and … ” series (with episodes actually titled “I’m Pregnant and … a Hoarder” or “I’m Pregnant and … May Be Having a Dwarf”) are no less disturbing than any of the gruesome unsolved murders or incurable diseases that crowd the cable schedule.

So – the Daily Double-Trouble is now the order of the day for reality shows.

Surreal.

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The Usual Suspects Convention

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Is there anything on God’s green earth more predictable than a New York Times op-ed page roundup?

From Sunday’s Week in Review:

The President’s Speech

With President Obama poised to deliver his second State of the Union address on Tuesday, the Op-Ed editors asked politicians, journalists and experts in various fields what they would like to hear him say.

What follows is a roll call of Just Who You’d Expect: Elliott Abrams, Tom Daschle, Michelle Rhee, Alice Rivlin, Robert Reich, blah blah blah.

The only mildly surprising presence was Dan Savage, described as “editorial director of The Stranger, a Seattle weekly.” Of course, Savage is much more – and much more controversial – than that, as you can see here.

But why get technical about it in Times like these?

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The Olbermanniacs Comment, Specially

Posted on January 23, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

So yesterday the hardworking staff wrote this:

Who Shot Keith Olbermann?

Who cares?

To which splendid reader Laurence Glavin responded:

Who cares? The Huffington Post story got 28,000 comments. Oh, and I care …a lot.

The hardworking staff believes he’s referring to this piece, which, eight hours later, has almost 35,000 comments. Representative samples:

jenna2929 1 minute ago (1:14 AM)

it sounds like the conservatives on here are just bitter because everyday in the news, there’s another big eff up from palin, beck, republican senators, etc., and it’s coming out in your bitter comments about keith. don’t worry, our keith will be back with a vengeance, and you’ll still be stuck with palin and beck and all the other eff ups.
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Monte Carlow 1 minute ago (1:13 AM)
He better run for office.
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dems08 2 minutes ago (1:13 AM)
did everyone call/email nbc universal/phil griffin and give them a piece of your mind?

MSNBC (212) 664-4444

You can e-mail Phil Griffin at: phil.griff in@nbcuni. com

FrankAnalysis 2 minutes ago (1:13 AM)
For more than 2 years I’ve appreciated his intelligent commentary and passion for rationality and social justice. Sometimes obscure, but honest and intense. I look forward to what he does next.
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caveman1313 2 minutes ago (1:12 AM)
well, now the real reason is out and we can stop with the theories.

Keith wanted more money than msnbc wanted to pay him.

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Wilburrr 3 minutes ago (1:12 AM)
If, in the meantime, KO does not show up on HuffPo, then he has bigger plans…. bigger fish to fry (that analogy shouldn’t be too violent, unless you’re a fish…)
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PLT23 4 minutes ago (1:10 AM)
Keith can not ever go back to MSNBC! Too much water under the bridge!
Keith deserves better! I for one am waiting with high anticipation over his next endeavor…
Whatever you decide KO, I stand behind you:)
Just know that your voice is indeed important and needs to be heard!!
Keep us posted:)
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Bon1042 2 minutes ago (1:12 AM)
i think so too…. and don’t think his integrity would let him.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER

Hoopers X 4 minutes ago (1:10 AM)

Olbermann as Press Secretary…. NO!!!!

I would hate to see that happen. He has a unique voice that would be stifled in a job like that. He would have to measure his words and never step into commentary, which is where he excells. So as awesome an idea as it my be on first observation, NO. He need to be able to provide opinion, not be stuck in a job where he can’t say what’s on his mind and toe a party line. That’s not Keith.

Boopsie2008 6 minutes ago (1:09 AM)
One person who might have been happy at Olbermann’s termination is Sarah Palin, because she most likely is afraid of how he might tear apart her message. Of course, the instant he re-emerges, she’s back on the hot seat.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER

LiberalBuzz 6 minutes ago (1:08 AM)

REMEMBER.

NO MSNBC.

We stand with Keith.

 

Then again, there’s this on HuffPo:

Olbermann Gone. Who Cares?

Well, Laurence for one.

But not me for two.

Olbermann jumped the shark during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary with his not-so-special comment about Hillary Clinton.

From there, Olbermann became a caricature: The proverbial self-made man who worships his creator.

After exiting MSNBC, he’ll land somewhere. But he doesn’t seem to be in a good place.

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R.I.P. Phyllis K. Robinson, Landmark Copywriter

Posted on January 23, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Obit from Saturday’s New York Times:

In the late 1940s, it was rare to find a woman in senior management at an advertising agency. But when Doyle Dane Bernbach opened its doors on June 1, 1949, its chief copywriter was Phyllis K. Robinson, who went on to help create memorable campaigns for Polaroid cameras and Levy’s rye bread as DDB achieved legendary status in the industry.

Ms. Robinson died on Dec. 31 at her home in Manhattan, her daughter, Nancy Thompson, said. She was 89.

She was also a major creative force during Madison Avenue’s “so-called creative revolution in the 1960s,” as the Times labeled it. She produced the “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye” campaign, as well as the James Garner/Mariette Hartley Polaroid ads.

Beyond what she created, though, are the talents she helped to create:

Ms. Robinson was the copy chief for the agency’s first 13 years and a mentor to notable copywriters like Paula Green, Julian Koenig, Mary Wells Lawrence and George Lois.

That’s some Hall of Fame firepower there.

Thanks, Phyllis.

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