BY DAN
KENNEDY
Notes and observations on
the press, politics, culture, technology, and more. To sign up for
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an e-mail to Dan Kennedy, click
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For bio, published work, and links to other blogs, visit
www.dankennedy.net.
For information on Dan Kennedy's book, Little People: Learning to
See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
click
here.
Friday, October 31, 2003
Blame it on Drudge. Just got
back from a field trip to Nashua, New Hampshire, only to find bad
news on Drudge.
-- Liberal comedian turned pathetic
Bush apologist Dennis
Miller is getting a talk
show on CNBC, which shows the idiots at NBC have decided that what's
not working on MSNBC can fail just as miserably on the sister
station.
As soon as Barry
Crimmins, a former writer
for Miller, weighs in on this distressing development, I'll put up a
link.
-- Microsoft wants to swallow
Google, the best damn search engine there is. According to
this
New York Times article,
Google would rather go ahead with its planned IPO, but what Bill
Gates wants, he eventually gets. If he succeeds, the question is, how
will he ruin the experience?
Earlier this year Google acquired
Blogger, the Web-based software that powers Media Log. It's Bill's
world, and we're all just visiting.
Disingenuous bishops. Leave
it to a conservative, independent Catholic to call the bishops'
bluff.
Today's Herald quotes Phil
Lawler, editor of Catholic
World News, on the
bishops' claim that the media got it wrong recently when they
reported that the Church was softening its stance on benefits for gay
and lesbian couples.
The Herald's Eric Convey and
Elisabeth Beardsley write:
Phil Lawler, editor of
Catholic World News, a conservative Web site focusing on church
affairs, and a former editor of The Pilot, defended the secular
media.
"The way it was played in the
media is pretty much the only logical way to play what was out
there," he said.
Asked why church leaders would
challenge that interpretation, Lawler said: "Plausible
deniability."
Here
is the Globe story on the same subject.
Little People, Big
Apple. I'll be talking about Little
People tomorrow from
noon to 1 p.m. on Simply Put, on Bloomberg Radio, which is
heard in New York City on WBBR (AM 1130), on all three satellite
networks, and in streaming audio at Bloomberg.com.
The hosts are two Boston guys --
Democratic political consultant Michael Goldman and MetroWest
Daily News columnist
Tom Moroney.
posted at 2:52 PM |
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Thursday, October 30, 2003
Crony capitalism, continued.
I've heard it said that Halliburton is the only company in the world
with the expertise to rebuild Iraq's shattered oil infrastructure. It
may be true.
But stories like this
front-page exclusive, by
the Boston Globe's Stephen Glain, can't help but raise
questions of crony capitalism. Dick Cheney's former company is doing
very well indeed, and the worse things get, the better they are for
Halliburton's shareholders.
If a Democrat were in the White
House and the independent-counsel law were still on the books, what
do you suppose the headline would be this morning? Certainly not the
deceptively bland head you'll find in the Globe: "Projected
Iraq Oil Costs Up Sharply."
New in this week's
Phoenix. It's time for the Phoenix's annual "Best"
issue, which features -- among other things -- our "Local
Heroes."
Mine is Tom
Birmingham, for being
unafraid to use a parliamentary maneuver to stop a hateful amendment
to the state constitution aimed at lesbians and gay men.
Also, union employees at the
Globe boycott
NECN.
posted at 9:17 AM |
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Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Subtle indeed. I'd like to
think I have a good eye for these things. But last week, I found
myself scratching my head several times while flipping through the
New York Times.
What's different? I asked
myself. Has the headline type changed?
I decided it hadn't.
It had.
On the Media has the
story.
Shameless self-promotion.
I'll be talking about Little
People today from 3:15
to 3:45 p.m. (local time) on Total Health, on KCTE
Radio (AM 1510) in Kansas
City, and -- locally -- tonight on New England Cable News'
NewsNight
sometime between 8 and 9 p.m.
posted at 10:23 AM |
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Islam and terrorism in Boston?
(Part II). The Herald is back with the second
half of its piece on the
Islamic Society of Boston and its alleged ties to Muslims who support
terrorism.
Today's installment draws the
circle a little tighter than yesterday's, reporting that Osama M.
Kandil, who chairs the society's board of trustees, "is allegedly
linked to a network of Muslim companies and charitable groups in
Virginia suspected by federal investigators of providing material
support to Islamic terrorists."
But the report is frustrating,
because it's impossible to know whether Kandil is truly aiding and
abetting terrorists, or if he's been caught up in some unfortunate
second-hand affiliations.
Kandil himself denies all, and
tells the Herald that the mosque and cultural center the
society intends to build in Roxbury will promote "the moderate,
sophisticated view of Islam."
The smartest comment comes in the
sidebar.
US Representative Michael Capuano, whose district includes Roxbury
and who took part in the groundbreaking for the new mosque, says,
"The allegations are pretty serious. I'm going to do my best to learn
more. Having said that, the Islamic Society I know is an active,
responsible group ... I will not indict a whole group because of a
few people."
The Herald has unearthed
some important facts. But we need to know a lot more.
Gammons on Grady. You know
what you want. You want to know what Peter Gammons thinks of Grady
Little's firing, and of what comes next.
Here
you go.
Joe Maddon? Well, the
Globe's Bob
Hohler mentions him today,
too. So does the Herald's Michael
Silverman.
So it's officially a
trend.
posted at 9:04 AM |
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Tuesday, October 28, 2003
The housing market is hot! No,
it's cold! The Wicked
Good Conference has picked
up something I missed completely. The Globe today reports that
home sales last month soared
through the roof; the Herald says they cratered
through the floor.
"Shoddy reporting or what?" asks
Beso at the WGC.
Actually not, at least by my quick
read of the two stories. The problem is that the papers relied on
different experts. The Globe led with Wayne Ayers, chief
economist at FleetBoston Financial Corporation. The Herald
leaned mainly on Karl Case, an economics professor at Wellesley
College.
The Globe also bases its
optimism on a comparison of September's sales figures with those of
September 2002. The Herald's gloomy assessment comes from
comparing September's sales to the August numbers.
The question is, don't economists
agree on which is the more valid comparison? Why are Ayers and Case
so far apart in their assessments? And whom is the reader to
trust?
The Herald provides a clue
at the bottom of its report, noting the improvement over September
2002 and quoting Massachusetts Association of Realtors president
Peter Casey as saying, "It's a very, very positive market for both
buyers and sellers."
That leads me to suspect that the
optimistic view is the more valid.
posted at 4:15 PM |
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The business of baseball is
business. The Globe's Steve Bailey or the Herald's
Cosmo Macero should have been put on the case. Because the day-after
reaction to Grady Little's firing is supremely unsatisfying. The
Herald's Steve
Buckley (sub. req.) and, no
kidding, Gerry
Callahan (ditto) have the
smartest takes this morning. But what this story really needs is
someone who understands business.
Looking at this from afar, it
appears that what's really happened is that the Red Sox' newish
owners intend to run the franchise as a business, not as some old
boys' club dedicated to their own post-adolescent amusement. In the
business world, executives have to manage both down (i.e.,
handling employees, in this case players) and up (working with the
senior executives in carrying out the business plan).
Little did a good job of managing
down, but he evidently was lousy at managing up. He openly disdained
the ownership's numbers-based approach to the game -- an approach
that has become increasingly popular and successful at other
franchises in recent years. The Globe's Gordon Edes has a
mind-blowing anecdote
this morning:
The Sox no longer want to
discover, to their dismay, that the manager, according to a team
source, failed to hold a hitters' meeting before the Oakland
playoff series, wasting countless hours of traditional scouting
work and sophisticated video and statistical analysis that was
done ostensibly to give the Sox an edge.
This is just derelict. No CEO
should put up with this from one of his front-line
managers.
Stories like this put Little's
idiotic decision to send Pedro Martínez out for the eighth
inning -- and to leave him out there while he got his brains beaten
in -- into perspective. But Little's self-immolation robbed the team
owners of a certain degree of maneuverability, too.
Because despite his flaws, Little
might have been better than anyone else the Red Sox could get for
next year. In a perfect world, the Sox would have strung Little along
for a few weeks to see who became available. If they couldn't get a manager who would be obviously better, they might have signed Little for one
more year.
Adrian Wojnarowski,
writing
for ESPN.com, is
irrationally pro-Little, but he is correct when he observes that the
Red Sox let him go without having a backup plan in place.
That's Little's fault. He could
never have managed here again after what happened in Game
Seven.
Islam and terrorism in
Boston? The Herald's investigative team breaks through the
Bennifer haze this morning to weigh in with a major piece
on a Boston-based Islamic organization.
According to the report, the
Islamic Society of Boston, which plans to build a mega-mosque in
Roxbury, has ties to two men who are virulently anti-American and
anti-Israel, Abdurahman Muhammad Alamoudi and Yusuf Abdullah
al-Qaradawi.
Both men have praised terrorist
organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Alamoudi has been
indicted on allegations that he illegally accepted money from Libya.
Al-Qaradawi has been banned from the US for his pro-terrorist
views.
The problem is that it is unclear
whether Alamoudi and al-Qaradawi really do have close ties to the
Islamic Society. The society itself denies it, and supporters say
that it preaches a moderate, tolerant brand of Islam.
There's no doubt that the
Herald's findings are of some significance. But how
significant? It's hard to say.
Part two, coming tomorrow, promises
some answers: "A current trustee of the Islamic Society of Boston has
been named in a federal Islamic terrorism financing
investigation."
posted at 9:04 AM |
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Monday, October 27, 2003
Kerry's fading candidacy.
Last week I ran into someone who described himself as a strong John
Kerry supporter, a politically savvy guy who used to work for the
senator. He urged me to investigate those polls that showed Howard
Dean trouncing Kerry in New Hampshire.
It's not real, he insisted.
He especially wanted me to check in with pollster John Zogby, whose
methodology, he claimed, showed that Kerry was doing far better
against Dean in New Hampshire than the other polls
suggest.
Well, on Friday, Zogby
reported
that Dean had opened up a 40 percent-to-17 percent lead over Kerry in
New Hampshire. "This is stunning," Zogby quoted himself as saying.
"This qualifies as juggernaut status. Can he be stopped?"
Yesterday, the Boston Globe
published poll
results that showed Dean
leading Kerry in New Hampshire by a margin of 37 percent to 13
percent.
It's still early, of course, but
it's not that early. In a large field in which no one has
really broken through, Dean has simply done more things right than
anyone else. He has managed the contortionist's trick of establishing
himself as the frontrunner and the insurgent simultaneously, and he's
raising a ton of dough -- meaning that, unlike past early surprises
such as John McCain (2000) and Gary Hart (1984), Dean will have no
problem capitalizing on a big New Hampshire win, if that is indeed
what lies in his future.
As for Kerry ... well ... he
remains the establishment's choice, a solid, stolid, intelligent
person with deep foreign-policy credentials and a mainstream liberal
voting record. But you have to ask: is this someone who is capable of
making up a lot of ground in a short period of time? He's not
exciting or flashy. He is incapable of explaining his complicated
position on Iraq in a soundbite. In other words, Kerry -- after
enjoying a brief moment as the consensus frontrunner earlier this
year -- may now be the fallback candidate: the guy voters turn to if
Dean implodes. And there's no sign that Dean is going to
implode.
I watched some of last
night's debate (confession:
I passed out cold about half-way into it), and thought Kerry got off
a few good lines -- especially his zing at Dean, who said he would
surround himself with good foreign-policy advisers. "We're electing a
president of the United States, not a staff," Kerry said.
But Kerry was, as usual, too quick
to cite his military service, as he did when defending himself
against Joe Lieberman, who had criticized him for voting against the
$87 million package in aid for Iraq. And there is the continued
logistical impossibility of breaking through at a debate when there
are nine candidates on stage.
The Boston Herald's David
Guarino and Andrew Miga think last night's debate was
a
good moment for Kerry. He's
going to need a lot more such moments.
The Great Savior, Wesley Clark,
appears to be going nowhere fast, but his presence does make it less
likely that the media will give Kerry a second look. And Dean keeps
doing his thing, and doing it well.
But first, are you experienced?
The Globe's Gordon
Edes yesterday on potential
Red Sox managerial candidate Bud Black: "[H]e has zero
managing experience, and Boston is no place for your first
job."
A few paragraphs later, on Willie
Randolph: "He hasn't managed before, but there's nothing wrong with
raiding the Empire, is there?"
Local the way Mr. Potter was
local. It's pretty hard to get worked about about the impending
demise about Fleet Bank, isn't it? The Globe's
Steve
Bailey breaks another big
story.
posted at 9:19 AM |
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MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
