From Peggy Noonan’s current Wall Street Journal column about Ronald Reagan’s 1980 co-opting of the John Birch Society (“Well, he said pleasantly, they said they support me, I didn’t say I support them”):
He cared about reality, about the facts of the world, and bothered to know them.
That’s rich, considering how often Reagan created his own reality, mostly sculpted from black-and-white movie scenes in which he had appeared.
Then again, reality has never been Ms. Noodnik’s strong suit.
Conventional wisdom says in political campaigns nowadays, the Internet diversifies while television amplifies.
The TV air war in the Massachusetts gubernatorial race has so far been dominated by the National Governors Association’s $2 million ad blitz targeting mostly independent Tim Cahill, but also incumbent Deval Patrick – all to prop up the desultory campaign of GOP candidate Charlie Baker.
But the social media landscape has been much more fertile ground for judging the gubernatorial hopefuls.
The scorecard as of this week:
Facebook:
Deval Patrick 16,523 likes
Charlie Baker 10,771 likes
Tim Cahill 4749 likes
Jill Stein 2400 likes
Twitter:
Patrick 1443 followers; following 2000*
Baker 2321 followers; following 2005
Cahill 772 followers; following 451
Stein 216 followers; following 221
* The Patrick campaign actually has four twitter feeds (fundraising, organizing, daily briefing, and VoteDeval). The numbers above are for VoteDeval.
Note the Twitter numbers for Patrick and Stein. In real-estate terms, both are underwater: following more than they’re followed.
Patrick’s Failower Index is 557; Stein’s is 5.
Probably not a leading indicator, but you never know.
At this point in the season, here’s what one Made Yankee Fan in Boston (Facebook group here) wants to know every day:
1) Did the Yanks win? (yes)
2) Did Alex Rodriguez fail to hit his 60oth home run? (yes!)
3) How did the inestimable in-his-contract-year Derek Jeter do? (1-for-3)
One thing I don’t do every day:
Root for the Red Sox to lose.
That’s for losers.
From Thursday’s New York Times:
Swastika Is Deemed ‘Universal’ Hate Symbol
Lede:
The swastika now shows up so often as a generic symbol of hatred that the Anti-Defamation League, in its annual tally of hate crimes against Jews, will no longer automatically count its appearance as an act of anti-Semitism.
“The swastika has morphed into a universal symbol of hate,” said Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy organization. “Today it’s used as an epithet against African-Americans, Hispanics and gays, as well as Jews, because it is a symbol which frightens.”
I dunno – do we really want ignorant, insensitive people to redefine historical symbols?
Are we really that lax?
Shouldn’t the swastika continue to represent the most horrific example of ethnic cleansing ever?
Shouldn’t it be our responsibility to maintain that meaning, not expand it?
Just asking.
Excellent dustup over the purported trove of 65 alleged Ansel Adams 1930s glass negatives of Yosemite Park supposedly bought by a Fresno, CA painter for $45 ten years ago.
Associated Press headline:
Adams heirs skeptical about lost negatives claim
Lede:
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – It’s an antique collector’s dream: buying an old box at a garage sale and discovering it contains famous lost worksworth a fortune.
That’s what Rick Norsigian said happened to him. Ten years ago, the Fresno painter stumbled upon a trove of 65 old glass negatives that he says have been authenticated as the work of famed nature photographer Ansel Adams, possibly worth $200 million.
Sez him.
According to the Wall Street Journal:
[A]n heir who remains involved in curating Mr. Adams’s work said he was doubtful. And Bill Turnage, the managing trustee of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, said he didn’t believe the photographs were the work of Mr. Adams.
“We don’t think they look like Ansel’s work,” he said. “Do you have any idea how many people were photographing Yosemite in the 1920s and 1930s? Millions! It could be anyone.”
Sez him.
This art-ificial rumpus comes hard on the heels of an absolutely fascinating (quoth the Missus) piece in the New Yorker about Peter Paul Biro, the celebrated art authenticator who purportedly employs fingerprint forensics to establish provenance.
(See Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollack? for further details.)
Further details about the maybe yes-maybe no Adams negatives eagerly awaited.
Via New York Magazine’s The Cut (and the Missus):
Essence Hires a White Fashion Director, Backlash Ensues
Writer, stylist, and cultural critic Michaela Angela Davis stirred up controversy when she tweeted, “It is with a heavy heavy heart I have learned that Essencemagazine has engaged a white fashion director, this hurts, literally, spiritually.” Davis worked at Essenceas fashion editor, was the founding fashion director of Vibe, and served as the editor-in-chief of Honeymagazine. She told Clutch:
Offering her immediate reaction to the hiring, Michaela says, “I am so so hurt and confused and frankly angry by this news. I feel like a girlfriend has died.” Michaela’s tweets and Facebook comments on the hiring informed many media insiders, and former Essence staff members who had no clue… Michaela says her feelings on the news have much to do with black women’s hostile history with the fashion industry. Further explaining her concerns around the issue, Michaela wrote on Facebook: “It is personal and it’s also professional. If there were balance in the industry; if we didn’t have a history of being ignored and disrespected; if more mainstream fashion media included people of color before the ONE magazine dedicated to black women ‘diversified’, it would feel different.”
The new fashion director is Ellianna Placas, who has worked at O: The Oprah Magazine and Us Weekly. Commenters on Facebook have called Davis’s point of view “reverse racism,” but that’s not quieting a whole lot of upset people:
Joan Morgan, an award-winning journalist, author and long-time writer for Essence says she could care less how qualified the brand’s new white Fashion Director could be. “This is about the fact that the publishing industry, particularly when it comes to mainstream women’s magazines remains just about as segregated in its hiring practices as it did in 1988.” Joan referenced a 1988 Folio article about Blacks who are discouraged by the publishing industry’s “laissez-faire attitude toward recruitment.” Joan says, “When these same institutions (naming Conde Nast, Hachette and others) start to employ hiring practices that allow Black publishing professionals the same access to their publications, that’s when I can get all ‘Kumbaya’ about Essence‘s new fashion director.”
Others still are threatening to stop buying the magazine.
Your . . . whatever . . . goes here.
New York Times Op-It Girl Maureen Dowd has a cover line on this week’s TV Guide magazine:
MAUREEN DOWD TAKES DOWN THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF D.C.
The thing is, Dowd is not featured on the TV Guide home page, is not among the Most Popular Stories, and her D.C. Housewives piece does not turn up in a “Maureen Dowd” search of the site.
Or in a search of “Real Housewives of Washington, D.C.”
But if you plug the headline of her piece – “D.C. Power Players? Get Real!” – into the TV Guide site, you get . . . also nothing.
Even a Googletron search comes up empty.
Could it be that Dowd has morphed into the Not-It Girl?
Say not it’s so.
From a Tuesday Wall Street Journal op-ed about District of Columbia public school chancellor Michelle Rhee’s firing 241 teachers (about 6% of the total) for poor performance:
The mass dismissals follow a landmark agreement Ms. Rhee negotiated with the Washington Teachers Union (WTU) at the end of June. The quid pro quo was this: Good teachers would get more money (including a 21.6% pay increase through 2012 and opportunities for merit pay). In exchange, bad teachers could be shown the door.
At the time, many gave the teachers union credit for approving this deal. Here’s how another New York-based newspaper described the contract:
“Teachers’ unions around the country are realizing that they can either participate in shaping reforms or have others’ reforms forced upon them. The latest example comes from Washington, where the union has wisely negotiated and ratified a contract that gives the city greater leeway to pay, promote or fire teachers based on performance.”
[Emphasis added]
Seriously? Another New York-based newspaper?
Process of elimination tells you:
1) It’s not the New York Post, which WSJ overlord Rupert Murdoch also owns
2) It’s not the New York Daily News, which just doesn’t talk that way
3) It’s not Newsday, which just doesn’t matter
No, it’s the New York Times, which Murdoch would like to either buy or destroy.
And it’s pathetic for the Wall Street Journal to descend to this level.
From Monday’s New York Times Metropolitan Diary:
Dear Diary:
The news in late May about the closing performances of Marina Abramovic’s installation at the Museum of Modern Art reminded me of the following conversation overheard several months ago:
Place: M104 bus stop, Broadway and 100th Street.
Dramatis Personae: Boy, perhaps 9 or 10; his mother.
They are in the midst of an animated conversation. Boy is pretty excited, laughing.
Boy: “ So you saw these people at the museum, and they were naked?”
Mom: “Yes, they were naked.”
Boy: “Not a statue, like at the Met where they have the Greek statues that are sort of naked, but real live people, who are, like, naked, with no clothes on?”
Mom: “Nope, not a statue. Naked people, a man and a woman. They just stand there.”
Boy (Looks for 104, which isn’t coming. After a moment): “I think our class should go there on a field trip!”
Mom: “Well, I don’t think it’s the kind of exhibit that your class would go to.”
Boy (thinks about this for a moment): “Maybe I could go there on a play date?”
Peter Hagan
Hey – the whole MOMA exhibit was a playdate, especially the nudie parts.
Example:
(See the hardblushing staff’s coverage here and here and here.)
So long, Marina. Truth to tell, we’re starting to miss you.
I yield to no man in my admiration for intrepid New York Times war correspondent C.J. Chivers.
But his byline should not have stood alone atop Monday’s Boston Globe front-page piece headlined, “Leaked archive casts stark light on Afghan war.”
The Globe story, plucked off the Times wire service, summarized the WikiLeaks wikidump of five years’ worth of military documents chronicling the war in Afghanistan.
Not to get technical about it, but the original Times piece had many makers:
This article was written and reported by C. J. Chivers, Carlotta Gall, Andrew W. Lehren, Mark Mazzetti, Jane Perlez, and Eric Schmitt, with contributions from Jacob Harris and Alan McLean.
Chivers did, however, solo in a separate Monday Times piece with this captivating lede:
Nothing in the documents made public on Sunday offers as vivid a miniature of the Afghan war so far — from hope to heartbreak — as the field reports from one lonely base: Combat Outpost Keating.
So.
Credit where credit is due, yes?
Photo: Kevin Frayer/Associated Press
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