Why Is This a Good Ad? I'm Going to Ask Pabst. It's from Sports Illustrated, and It Doesn't Appear to be a Good Ad. It's Creepy, n'est-ce pas?

This add strikes me as somewhat creepy. I will now copy the redoubtable Greg Pabst for a definitive opinion.

Click it to make it big.

A Tie between Me and Wieder

The New Yorker cartoon caption contest. The finalists (rather lame) are:

"Why did you think angels had wings?"
		"It's not the tedium. It's the uncertainty."
		"I always figured Hell would be less ironic." Brother Wieder's (unsubmitted) were: “Obviously, His so-called ‘perfection’ doesn’t extend to furniture design.” “All those images of the wings probably should have tipped us off.” “Sure it’s ‘heaven,’ if you’re crazy about omelettes.” And mine (equally unsubmitted) were: It’s no fun for the kids if they are too hard to find. Ten thousand years of this, and your back won’t bother you for the rest of eternity. Same thing he said to you. “You can’t have a dinosaur until I’m sure you’ll take responsibility for it.”

He Jests at Scars That Never Felt a Flea Comb

For the excellent story, race to USA Today.

Grade It Yourself: Would You Have Aced? Would You Have Passed?

American Journalism Ethics Midterm

October 29, 2007

Place these in the context of our discussion of journalism ethics. Keep it brief.

1. Seditious libel (3 points)

2. Ben Franklin (3 points)

3. Master narrative (3 points)

4. Prior restraint (3 points)

5. The telegraph and objectivity (3 points)

6. List three of the four sources for the typical American journalist’s “ideology” that Altschull presents in our textbook (3 points)

7. List four of the five characteristics of objectivity according to the scholar David Mindich (4 points)

8. Hobbes and Locke on Contract Theory (6 points)

9. John Peter Zenger and Cato (6 points)

10. “Trolley problems” and “double effect,” that is, the difference between foreseen and intended effects (6 points)

Short essay question (20 points)

Talk about the ethical implications of the following things during interviewing:

* manipulating body language;

*laughing at jokes;

* using the “some people say” or the “my editor insisted I ask this” technique as a preface for a question that you want to ask;

* handling what you learn during exit questions/exit comments (those exchanges that take place when you have put up your notebook or tape recorder and are literally walking out of the interview)

Long essay question (40 points)

Use the system of the Potter’s Box to analyze the following ethical dilemma.

Your answer will consist of two parts: a Potter’s Box diagram with key words placed in its quadrants and an essay elaborating on that diagram. As part of that analysis, consider the dilemma in terms of each of the five ethical approaches Potter uses as part of his framework. If you have another ethical context that supplements or goes beyond the Potter Five, feel free to add it. Tell me which of those approaches – if any – seem most useful in your attempt to resolve this dilemma.

The problem: A reporter with a big-city newspaper is assigned a story on the newly emerged leader of a local white supremacist group. The leader is a powerful and charismatic public speaker who seems to be an effective spokesman for the group’s ideology: that all those who are not of “pure Aryan blood” are inferior. The group singles out Jews, blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Muslims for contempt. The group is also anti-homosexual. The group does not advocate violence against anyone but does urge: “racial” separation; laws allowing schools to segregate by race; laws against intermarriage of the races; laws protecting the right of businesses to refuse to hire homosexuals and of school districts to remove homosexual teachers from the classroom; stringent restrictions on immigration by “the mongrel races.”

The group seems to have an active membership of only a few hundred.

The reporter receives an anonymous tip that the leader of the group is actually Jewish. By working carefully and patiently through public records, the reporter tracks down the leader’s family. The tip is accurate. The leader is Jewish and, in fact, participated in his own Bar Mitzvah before abandoning his faith and his culture. It is clear that the members of the group do not know of their leader’s background. The reporter confronts the leader, who – when the scope of the reporter’s research becomes clear – concedes that the reporter has it right. First, the leader threatens the reporter but soon he is begging the reporter not to publish the information, suggesting that he will kill himself if he is exposed. It is perhaps worth noting that the reporter, who is Caucasian, is what one might term an “out” Christian; that is, in the newsroom he freely, even aggressively, shares his religious faith with his co-workers, inviting them to his church and attempting to involve them in personal conversations about their own faith or lack of it.

The question is: How should the reporter proceed? The reporter is confident that if he presents the story to his editor, it will be published and that, if he protests after having presented the story to the editor, his protests will be ignored. He is, in effect, the gatekeeper on this story

Larry Craig and the Foot Tapping Spell

He was told it cured loneliness, but he was shaky on the details.

But now the details are clear.

P.S. By the way, I am getting the impression that a coaltion of deconstructionists and conservative Christians is arguing that Dumbledore is not gay -- like Hamlet he is confined to the words with no presence beyond it -- that the text is entirely indeterminate on this point and reader trumps writer just as critic trumps reader.

Having not read any of the novels, I must lay my weapon down and step away from the car.

Lakeshore Trader Joe's: Uh-Oh

After all the excitement, the puffing out of our collective chest
over the coup of TJ's coming to our little neighborhood, the store
is a big fat disappointment.

Actually, it's not a big fat disappointment. It's not big enough,
and that's where the disappointment begins. The innards are
thin as a rake, funneling the elbow-knocking customers back
toward the rear, where the sign rather ominously announces:
"Meat."

You mean, me? I think.

It really does remind me of that Monty Python sketch about
the misguided architect.




****  The Architects Sketch
Scene: A large posh office.  Two clients, well-dressed city gents, sit
           facing a large table at which stands Mr. Tid, the account manager
           of the architectural firm. (original cast: Mr Tid, Graham Chapman;
           Mr Wiggin, John Cleese; City Gent One, Michael Palin; Client 2:,
           Terry Jones; Mr Wymer, Eric Idle)

  Mr. Tid: Well, gentlemen, we have two architectural designs for this new
           residential block of yours and I thought it best if the architects
           themselves explained the particular advantages of their designs.

           There is a knock at the door.

  Mr. Tid: Ah! That's probably the first architect now. Come in.

           Mr. Wiggin enters.

Mr. Wiggin: Good morning, gentlemen.

  Clients: Good morning.

Mr. Wiggin: This is a 12-story block combining classical neo-Georgian features
           with the efficiency of modern techniques.  The tenants arrive here
           and are carried along the corridor on a conveyor belt in extreme
           comfort, past murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, towards the
           rotating knives.  The last twenty feet of the corridor are heavily
           soundproofed.  The blood pours down these chutes and the mangled
           flesh slurps into these...

 Client 1: Excuse me.

Mr. Wiggin: Yes?

 Client 1: Did you say 'knives'?

Mr. Wiggin: Rotating knives, yes.

 Client 2: Do I take it that you are proposing to slaughter our tenants?

Mr. Wiggin: ...Does that not fit in with your plans?

 Client 1: Not really. We asked for a simple block of flats.

Mr. Wiggin: Oh. I hadn't fully divined your attitude towards the tenants. You
           see I mainly design slaughter houses.

  Clients: Ah.

Mr. Wiggin: Pity.

The Walgreen's in the other fraction of the building -- might
be half; might be less -- was not part of the deal I thought the
neighborhood had accepted during our battle to get a grocery
store into the old Albertson's space. I know I sent a tart email
declaring we didn't need another drugstore, having a perfectly
nice Long's 50 yards away.

But there the Walgreen's is, having pinched TJ's to the point it
is oppressively cluttered and claustrophobic and really does
affect me as if it were a death chute.

But every disappointment has a lining of precious metal
or warm cuddly fur, doesn't it. We feared the Trader Joe's was
going to be so popular that the neighborhood's stock of parking
places would be overburdened, the street swamped by our success.

I rather doubt that will happen. The TJ loyalists will flock. The rest
of us will continue at the Grand Ave. Safeway, which now seems like
St. Peter's Square compared to Trader Giovanni.

And there's always the new Whole Foods a mile or so away, a food palace
of almost decadent loveliness.

My Blog's Earnings Push

In the four months since I installed Adsense by Google on this blog, I have made $11.61. My little tussle with South Florida during the last three days is responsible for $2.08 of that.

The lessons in this are obvious, and they are several. One of them is that dollar-wise it is an utter waste of my time to explain those lessons. (But remember I said they were obvious.)

Better I should look for deposit bottles in the gutter, which I am told is fun.

Why, Rowdy Old Skeptic That I am, I Have Beliefnet on my News Aggregator

Jim Wallis says:

Jesus made healing a principal sign of his ministry and of the presence of the kingdom of God. From a biblical point of view, it is simply wrong when health becomes a commodity and accessibility depends upon wealth. Until something is done to make universal health care a reality in America, millions of families will remain poor. SCHIP is one bill – one program – to help fix the health care problem. No bill is perfect. But a bipartisan group of legislators think it is a good bill in the right direction.

To veto the bill, with no alternative plan instead - to simply abandon millions of poor children, to leave them to a market system that is failing to provide health care to enough people - is simply morally unacceptable. We must not allow this to become an ideological battle over the larger issue of health care systems. This is about a specific program for poor children that a bipartisan majority believes is working. This is not about health care theories - this is about children. And now, overriding a presidential veto will become the next faith-based issue.

It's Over.

My "conversation" with the University of South Florida is over. No posts from here or there for a long time. I reserved the last comment, the capstone, the rhetorical checkmate for myself:

2:06 PM

....J.Michael Robertson said...

Everyone out of insults so soon?

Okay: The University of South Florida's mama is SO FAT that if you said to her, "Pi*R*squared," she would reply, "That may well be so, grasshopper, but it's more important to remember that pie are good!"

Made me laugh when I was 12. Makes me laugh now. Laughter is good.

Last Night We Watched Happy Feet (The Movie): From One Point of View How Lovely; From Another How Profoundly Stupid

If the chicken is to be eaten, the chicken must die. I admire this little movie very much.

They Call it Tact, and It's Definitely Old School

Darkling Plain wrote:

You've not quite looked your chipper self. No need to explain *that*.
I am sure that in class you are "concentrating on the material" and that marriage (and cigars?) have their compensations (I wouldn't know, wish I did). But it strikes me as absurd in the extreme that instead of asking you how you are, I went to your blog, and I did this because I was concerned that if I asked you, face to face, then it would be embarrassing if in fact, say, your mom were no longer with us. Bad form. Which means that I am saying -- this cannot be so, can it? -- that I feel I must keep up to date with the blog, not you, in order to have a conversation with you or to ask after your well being.

I Had Always Wondered

Paul Glastris, of (I think) Washington Monthly describes the prep for his Colbert appearance.

Then I was taken to the makeup room, where my face (and bald spot) was covered up with gunk, and then back to my dressing room. A few minutes before the taping, Colbert came by and introduced himself. He was quite personable as he gave me what I presume is his standard prep talk. The character I play, he said, is extremely opinionated and extremely ignorant. Don't get thrown off by the ridiculous questions I ask you. Just focus on making the points you want to make. (His producers had given me very similar advice: don't respond to his jokes, and for God's sakes don't try to joke back, just concentrate on getting your message out).

Just Had to Pull This Up from One of Those Florida Websites

1. Larry Woods Says:
   October 25th, 2007 at 8:14 pm

   Sir Michael:
   Keep on keepin’ on. You prick the conscience of the young, and that’s a good thing. Great professors, born before the blog bloated cyberspace but devilish enough to use it to ignite a dash of Socratic intercourse, are to be commended. More should have the gall, or daring. The snit of USF vs. USF is amusing, especially to a Florida Gator, thank you, class of ‘63.

Full disclosure: He's an old friend who did 20 prize-winning years at CNN.

Editor's Note: You quite reasonably ask, "How you got the time to waste on this?" The answer is I've been sick in bed for most of the week -- went in on Wednesday; that was a mistake -- and this beats thinking, which general description of web conduct the majority of replies to my USF post amply illustrate

Why I Like the TV Series Madmen

I'd been meaning to write on that topic, and this morning I stumbled across a post of mine from years ago that pretty well explains why.

Or, If You Prefer, Our Lady of the Hydrogen Fusion

My wife was ten minutes late for work this morning because she started reading the story in today's Chronicle about the takeover by SBC of AT&T and, as she read, we talked about the breakup of Ma Bell in the eighties and -- going further back -- of Bell labs and, of course, the labs' contribution to junior high school life in the fifties, "Our Mr. Sun."

I must have seen it a half dozen times in one class or another. It was wonderful. So wonderful. Such a classy way for a teacher -- science class, homeroom, home economics, probably even traffic school -- to get a chance to draw a deep breath and go outside for a cigarette. It was a perfectly riveting film. I remember the huge pagan burning sun filling the screen. I remember a mixture of scientists and animations that made me want more than anything to become a scientist and wear a long white lab coat and understand the world in simple declarative sentences.

Of course, in the end it was tales in books about hearts and minds that finally got me -- call it the earthbound astronomy of the imagination -- and I became a watcher rather than a toucher. I ended up just another book rat, filled with sadness when also in the Chronicle this morning the comic strip artist Stephan Pastis wrote "discretely" when he meant "discreetly."

A scientist says things like "discrete particles" and knows what he means. (Or as Harvard President Larry Summers would add: "And I do mean 'he.' You there honey. Get me some coffee. )

He or she. She or he. Or better even: "Scientists say ...... and know what they mean." There. Wordboy pulls his weight.

So: "Our Mr. Sun" didn't pull me into its orbit but pull it did. A quick google provides a surprise. Frank Capra directed it and wrote the script! It is a wonderful sun! Of course, someday it will go nova, but it will have had a wonderful life. Every time it stimulates photosynthesis, an angel gets a coffee break.

And look at the cast:

Eddie Albert is The Fiction Writer -- soon Green Acres would exert its pull. Frank Baxter is Dr. Research, a characterization quite distinct from his later role as Mr. Scientist in "Hemo the Magnificent." Richard Carlson is ... somebody. But who can forget Richard Carlson in "It Came from Outer Space" or as the undercover Commie in "I Led Three Lives"?

The brilliantly raspy-voiced Sterling Holloway is "Chloro Phyll." And Marvin Miller, who as Michael Anthony gave away the checks on "The Millionaire," is the voice of "Mr. Sun." (Today that million-dollar check would be worth a cool $6.5 mil. Okay!)

Wordsworth said it best, though to be fair he was describing Revolutionary France and not Eisenhower America:


Bliss it was to be alive, but to be young was very heaven.

Bliss. In the fifties you figured you would get a job with a big corporation like AT&T and spend the rest of your life there and then retire with a nice pension. In fact, in the December 29, 2004, Economist there's an article describing how we are losing our social mobility here in the U.S., about how our "meritocracy" is failing to deliver. According to the Economist, the experts say those long careers at huge companies provided talented people without fancy degrees and family connections -- those with no degrees, no connections -- a chance to work their way up from the mailroom to the boardroom.

Good good days in many ways. Or so it seemed at the time.

Editor's note: This has been slightly revised because in the original I wrote something that don't quite understand. I think it had something to do with Jerry Falwell and the Teletubbies. And if you were a woman back then all bets were off, which Madmen quite brilliantly shows. Does that need to be said?

Credit Where Credit is Due

Down below my valentine to the University of South Florida continues to be misunderstood by the Floridites -- but who would have thought that many people would not only have the nickname of "Gator" or "Possum" but also be so eager to broadcast the fact? If you go back to the original posting of my little essay in the Tampa Tribune sports blog, you will find even more comments.

And I must say that one of them is pretty darn funny:

Posted by Joe Humphrey, Wesley Chapel, Fla. on 10/25 at 06:24 PM

Never trust a man who uses the first initial followed by a name.

F. Lee Bailey
L. Frank Baum
G. Gordon Liddy
J. Edgar Hoover
J. Howard Marshall
H. Ross Perot
M. Night Shyamalan

I Feel Like I'm Running a Telethon: People, If You Will Only Reach Down into Your Hate *Just a Little Deeper*

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Better Know a USF:I Don't Know the Tune. Sorry.

The University of South Florida Alma Mater. The "through eternity" part is particularly fine.

Hail to thee, our Alma Mater,
May thy name be told
Where above thy gleaming splendor,
Waves the green and gold.
Thou our guide in quest for knowledge
Where we all are free,
University of South Florida,
(The bands performance of the Alma Mater starts here)

Alma Mater, Hail to thee!
Be our guide to truth and wisdom,
As we onward go.
May thy glory, fame, and honor
Never cease to grow.
May our thoughts and prayers be with thee
Through eternity
University of South Florida,
Alma Mater Hail to thee!

Better Know a USF: You Asked for It and Now You Have It -- The University of South Florida Fight Song!

It's quite rousing.

Better Know a USF: I Know I'm Not Supposed to Hype my Google Ads....

But this, my friends, strikes me as an excellent value.

S. Florida Bulls Ringtone

Download a South Florida Bulls fight song ringtone to your cell.

www.uk-ringtone.com

If someone were to gift me with it, I wouldn't say no.

More Interesting Data

Darwins Cat Entry Pages Ranked by Visits
	Entry Page
86	http://jmichaelrobertson.blogs...-usf-and-i-am-its-prophet.html
6	http://jmichaelrobertson.blogspot.com/
2	http://jmichaelrobertson.blogs.../coward-dry-little-coward.html
2	http://jmichaelrobertson.blogs...ern-life-is-insult-to-our.html
1	http://jmichaelrobertson.blogs...nd-chaney-gone-completely.html
1	http://jmichaelrobertson.blogs...-his-deeds-warrior-may-be.html
1	http://jmichaelrobertson.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_archive.html
1	http://jmichaelrobertson.blogs...2007/01/dolly-want-cookie.html