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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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…)
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:)
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.
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.
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.
Fox Rejects Super Bowl Ad From JesusHatesObama.Com
Fox has rejected a proposed Super Bowl ad from a conservative comedy site called JesusHatesObama.com.
The ad shows two bobblehead dolls: one of Jesus and one of President Obama. As “Battle Hymn Of The Republic” plays, the video cuts between the two bobbleheads until Jesus seemingly makes the Obama bobblehead fall into a fish tank, whereupon the logo for the site comes up.
Fox said the ad was unacceptable and could not air during the Super Bowl.
And that’s excellent news for one Richard Belfry, who operates the merchandising site JesusHatesObama.com and very likely has nothing near the $3 million it would take to actually run the proposed spot on the Super Bowl broadcast.
But he’s very likely gotten at least $3 million worth of publicity from his stunt.
Here’s Campaign Outsider’s two cents worth:
The hardworking staff now hates . . . itself.
2) Did Friday’s Boston Herald really devote four full pages to burritos?
Yes, indeed. Specifically pages 4, E1, E2, and E3.
Well, now we know why the author of this much gossiped about, heavily marketed new book wanted to remain anonymous: “O: A Presidential Novel” is a thoroughly lackadaisical performance — trite, implausible and decidedly unfunny.
Kakutani starts out by challenging the assumption that the anonymous author is an Obamanaut:
There has been plenty of online speculation that the author of “O” may be a political reporter, blogger or onetime member of President Obama’s staff, but while he or she clearly has a feel for what it’s like to be on the campaign trail, much of what passes for inside knowledge in these pages would be known to anyone who’s read a bunch of campaign accounts, subscribed to Mike Allen’s “Playbook”or watched “Morning Joe.”
In fact, given the unflattering depiction of the fictional O, the author could even be an Obamanot:
O’s hypocrisy and arrogance, along with improbable plot developments, make it hard not to suspect that the author of this novel is a Republican sympathizer — or at the very least someone very disillusioned with President Obama.
Say, that was some war of attrition between Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki and China’s Li Na in the Australian Open semifinal, yeah?
Campaign Outsider 
The Olbermanniacs Comment, Specially
To which splendid reader Laurence Glavin responded:
The hardworking staff believes he’s referring to this piece, which, eight hours later, has almost 35,000 comments. Representative samples:
Then again, there’s this on HuffPo:
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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