Rav Casley Gera

The video below is part of a swath of evidence suggesting that I was wrong last night - that the debate did far more for Obama than for McCain. But the really interesting bit comes at around the 2-minute mark, which overlays key moments with tracks of people’s live impressions. See how much Obama’s score ticks up when he attacks McCain over Iraq:

The lesson? The surge has not, as expected, neutralised Obama’s gains on having opposed the war. He can keep using having opposed the war, in mainstream arenas, and score real points on judgment. This is big news.

Writing that “God has called me to a higher place,” Fulton County State Court Judge Penny Brown Reynolds on Monday notified Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue that she would resign, effective Oct. 22, to embark on her new career as a television judge on “Family Court with Judge Penny.”
- Fulton County Daily Report: Judge to Resign Next Month for TV Gig

Some Virginia judges are asking defense attorneys to refrain from patting police officers on the back in court, on the theory that the gesture suggests the existence of a “good old boy system.”
- Associated Press: Attorneys Told to End Courtroom Back-Pats

Brief shoulder massages and goosing were not specified as prejudicial.

For all its horrendous qualities, you do have to admire the Sun’s ability to catch the emotive details of a story.

The Mail’s “Great to be British” headline kind of neatly sums up the essential attitude of the newspapers these days. When bad things happen (crime, global economic downturn), it’s always the Government’s fault, never society’s. When good things, happen, it’s all the country’s achievement, and never the Government’s, despite all the important work DCMS have done behind the scenes to get us this far.

In the first series of Big Brother, I remember the housemates speculating after “Nasty Nick” was thrown out about any possible press coverage. Most of them were incredulous at the idea that it would be in the newspapers at all. Of course, it was splashed all over the front pages for days.

Last week, model MaySoon left the house voluntarily, and the housemates spent an hour imagining possible headlines: “See MaySoon,” etc. Actually, though, it barely made it into the papers at all…

The Chandra Levy series, on Page 1 for 13 days, has provoked these kinds of comments: Lurid! Appalling! A waste of time! And these: Fascinating! Totally hooked! Riveting!

No investigation in my 2 1/2 years here has provoked such sharply opposing reader comment as the series on the seven-year-old unsolved murder of the Washington intern, who was having an affair with a congressman.

All but two of the approximately 75 readers who called or wrote to me were critical of the project; by Friday, in the online comments posted with stories, critics outnumbered fans about 410 to 70.

Yet it was clear from e-mails to the reporters — Sari Horwitz, Scott Higham and Sylvia Moreno — that many readers were engrossed. The series was phenomenally popular online, outpacing other recent investigative series. And, for the first time, Post reporters engaged with readers in an online dialogue through a daily Reporter’s Notebook; the comments (more than 500, but with many repeaters) were mostly positive.

- Washinton Post reader’s ombudsman Deborah Howell

I’ll stay out of the row over whether the 13-part epic was a wise or worthwhile move for the WaPo, largely because I can’t be bothered to trawl through the whole thing myself. But the description of the tone of the comments is instructive. From the comments on the piece itself, you’d think it was a disaster. But the comments on the reporter’s log were nicer, and those via email glowing.

The lesson? Knee-jerk comments are almost always nasty. Casual readers won’t generally bother to comment to say how much they liked a story or agreed with its view; only the enraged are engaged enough to click. Those who really like it are more likely to email in their praise. It’s sad, but most of us feel more comfortable slating something online - which makes us feel superior - than praising it, which feels a bit like weakness. If we have something nice to say, we prefer to say it in private.

Bloggers depressed at epic posts that generate nothing but sneering comments, take heart!

“A lot of people say that the Internet is the future for newspapers. Well, I say bullshit.com.”

- Paul Dacre, Editor in Chief, Daily Mail Group, 1999

Are electronic newspapers just a load of bullshit.com? - New Statesman, 1999

Online sales of Domino’s pizza have surged ahead of its forecasts, as its half-year profits and sales were boosted by diners shunning restaurants in favour of eating at home…[CEO Chris Moore says] ”a lot of that is due to trading down. People are eating at home and eating out at restaurants is on the wane. Previously, this was a suspicion but there is [now] evidence that is happening.”

-Domino’s Pizza beats slowdown as diners choose to eat at home [Independent, today]

Is it time to get this “crisis” in perspective, perhaps? We’ve seen doom and gloom everywhere, we’ve seen entirely irony-free references to “austerity” and “a return to the postwar years”. And what form, exactly, does this take? People ordering Pizza instead of going out to eat. God forbid that people might get so destitute they might actually have to cook.

Astonishingly, we have to look to the Standard (of all papers) for some sense:

Going 15 years without a recession does have a downside - and one that is becoming ever more obvious.

People have forgotten, or never learned, that economic slowdowns are perfectly natural, that they are not necessarily to be feared and for the most part make very little real difference to most people’s lives.

- Recession? We’ll cope just as we did before [Anthony Hamilton, Evening Standard, yesterday]

New York Times: “Mr. Obama’s Profile in Courage”

So let me get this straight. Letterman hosted Late Night and tried out for the Tonight Show but lost out to Jay Leno. Letterman moved to the Late Show and was replaced by Conan O’Brien. Now Leno is leaving, O’Brien is moving to to The Tonight Show, and Letterman is presumably having some sort of exoskeleton designed so he can keep doing The Late Show until the gap between his teeth grows so large it consumes the entire Earth.

Is it possible that two announcements coming out of the media industry this week encapsulate the very essence - and intrinsic limitations - of New Labour? On the one hand, a ban on junk food advertising to children; on the other, not a breath of concern when Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB buys an 18% stake of ITV. Address the excesses of the market, where they have a clear, measurable effect on the vulnerable; but show not the slightest concern over media consolidation that leaves one of the core cultural organisations of the country a likely target for a takeover by a right-wing foreign conglomerate. Admittedly, Murdoch’s move could increase competition by preventing a takeover of ITV by NTL. Nevertheless, ten years ago, for Murdoch to own a good chuck of ITV would surely have seemed inconcievable? Isn’t it possible that, thanks to New Labour’s cheery enthusiasm for unfettered markets, its much-publicised nods towards regulation are no more than tinkering?

UPDATE 25/05/07: Well shut my mouth.

Things I have learned this morning following an hour foraging around on the Guardian’s Comment Is Free website:

1. The Doha round has been suspended
2. The Doha round has been abandoned
3. The collapse of the Doha round is a disaster
4. The collapse of the Doha round is the best outcome for the world’s poor
5. Abolishing agricultural subsidies in the global North is the answer to development
6. Northern agricultural subsidies make little difference to developing countries
7. It was all the US’ fault
8. It was all the EU’s fault

And so on. [Read more →]

The end is in sight. One Prospect and a Harper’s to go. Neatly, this almighty tidying-up exercise seems to have coincided with the lapsing of all my subscriptions, which I’ve made a point of not renewing. So I’m beginning to feel a touch of sadness at the end of my odyssey. Fortunately, some of the best stuff has come right at the end. [Read more →]

At it again. I’m now bedded down for a long haul. After tonight, there’s no time until Sunday, so better get on.

22:11pm. A writer from Harper’s “would like to hunt down George W. Bush and kill him with my bare hands.” Or possibly not, it’s a little ambiguous. Apparently Jose Maria Aznar’s government was toppled by a flash mob.

22:45pm. Marvellous story about a Mexican death race. One driver swerved to avoid a child in the road and flew, almost heroically, off the road into an 80-metre gully below. Unfortunately, at the bottom, he hit the crowd of people who had rushed into the road to look at the car in front of him, which had just flown into the next gully down. [Read more →]

OK. We’re back, as rested as a day at work can make a guy. I’m not going to bed until I’ve at least demolished an Atlantic and two Harper’s.

21:48pm. Apparently most presidents become mentally ill in the White House, and Wal-Mart is the biggest private employer in the history of the world.

22:11pm. The overturning of Roe vs. Wade would apparently lead to thirty years’ Democratic hegemony, abortions for everybody, and fivers growing on trees. Apparently.

22:32pm. Blood hell! They can make broadband come out of power sockets!

23:36pm. One in five American grocery transactions takes place in a Wal-Mart. Good grief.

And it’s time for sleep - and then, groan, work - again. Only one Atlantic and half a Harper’s tackled. Tomorrow, the hill of ignorance will be conquered once and for all.

Magazines. There are hundreds of the bleeding things, and I sometimes think I’ve subscribed to most of them. They attack me like some multi-headed monster; as soon as you’ve slogged through one, another two have plopped onto the doormat. From initially reading them cover to cover, then just the most interesting articles, I’m now reduced to skimming - and still there’s so much of it that the thought of reading anything, ahem, more substantial goes out the window.

Well, enough is enough. It’s Sunday, and I’ve put the entire day aside to clear out my magazine drawer before it gets any more overfull. And you, dear reader, can share the journey with me, in stream-of-consciousness style. [Read more →]

Just a lucky discovery, this. WAMC’s Weekly Rundown is a free, streamable, downloadable, rss-able, podcastable “irreverent” weekly newsmagazine that comes out ever Friday night (EST). Big deal, right? Wrong! It’s a strangely joyous and occasionally genuinely funny dive behind the headlines from a nicely sneery-liberal East Coast perspective. The star of the show is Greg, who’s one of those people who you just know was a geek at school because, however much they’ve blossomed/got contact lenses/come out/found likeminded people, they still retain the slightly nasal voice. I always imagine Greg as a clever-looking blond preppy character, a bit like the guy from Ally MacBeal who was in Desperate Housewives last week. I haven’t dared to look at the website for fear he’s really fat with long greasy black hair and a Megadeth t-shirt.

Support comes from Mary, who, bless her, isn’t very funny, but tries hard. And her rubbish moments just make you appreciate Greg more. I always imagine her with a big blonde perm and a pink tunic, slightly patrician-y. Again, I daren’t look at the website, as she’s probably a lank-haired dropout.

Anyway, here’s the website, and here’s the rss/podcast feed.