Friday, January 04, 2002

WACKY-WACKY (real) news stories from a place that does them right--Russia!

posted by clark 11:41 AM

OUR OL' PAL BOB MCCHESNEY writes about how reactions against a monopolistic, right-wing-biased news media might (just might, mind you) be a cornerstone of the next great progressive movement.

posted by clark 12:10 AM

NAT HENTOFF WRITES about why there's nothing truly patriotic about unquestioning rote obedience.

posted by clark 12:04 AM

Thursday, January 03, 2002

THE TRUTH ABOUT ENRON: What was the real story behind the infamous company that helped buy the 2000 Presidential election, engineered the 2001 Calif. electricity crisis, and then went spectacularly kablooey? According to Fortune, it was a "new economy" company in an "old economy" industry. In other words, it behaved just like a dot-com, all bombastic and arrogant and obsessed with the stock price and executive perks (not necessarily in that order); devoutly disinterested in stable financials, accurate accounting, or other squaresville relics.

posted by clark 11:47 PM

THIS ARTICLE claims to have the sad but not unexpected truth about the psychic hotlines shilled by the mysterious TV ads of Miss Cleo. It doesn't mention that several acquaintances of mine claim to have known Youree Harris (Cleo's apparent real name) as an itinerant budding actress who spent a couple years in Seattle learning her schtick.

posted by clark 1:55 PM

Wednesday, January 02, 2002

THE NEW YEAR opened with almost exactly the same Space Needle fireworks routine (seen here from halfway up Queen Anne Hill) that began the last year.

It's as good a time as any for a year-in-review. In 2001, this region faced:

• A spectacularly horrific mass-murder-suicide attack back East, leading to the U.S.-led overthrow of a particularly odious Third World dictatorship.

• A massive economic slump.

• Skyrocketing electricity prices.

• The loss of Boeing's HQ, thanks to a CEO who thought he could re-image the company to stock buyers as a financial-services company that also happened to make stuff.

• A daily-newspaper strike that ended with few employee gains.

• A Mardi Gras riot, followed hours later by a massive yet fatality-free earthquake.

• The closure of the OK Hotel (to the earthquake), Tower Books, Pistil Books, the Frontier Room, the Speakeasy Cafe (to a spectacular fire), the Rendezvous Bar/Jewel Box Theater, the Ditto Tavern, the Korean-owned gangsta rap T-shirt store at 3rd and Pine, the Washington Film and Video Office, assorted dot-coms (including HomeGrocer, Kozmo, MyLackey, and MediaPassage), and a couple of upscale mags intended toward the dot-com crowd.

• The deaths of journalist-historian extraordinaire Emmett Watson and Two Bells Tavern owner Patricia Ryan.

• Tenth-anniversary-of-Nirvana hype in the national media.

On the at-least-somewhat brighter side:

• The Mariners had a once-in-a-lifetime regular season. (We'll forget about the AL Championship Series.)

• The UW football team won the 2000-2001 Rose Bowl (we'll forget about the 2001-2002 Holiday Bowl).

• Evictions and demolitions of funky old buildings slowed down, thanks to a collapsed market for shoddy-yet-costly condos.

• Our own delicious print MISC mag blossomed into an even tastier broadsheet with nearly two dozen contributing writers and artists (thanks, cats and chicks!).

posted by clark 12:13 AM

Tuesday, January 01, 2002

THIS QUAINT FIGURE who appeared at Westlake Center on New Year's Eve day is Captain Drift. He doesn't speak much, but here's part of what his accompanying written plaque has to say:

WHO IS CAPTAIN DRIFT?

The Captain was a humanoid from the universe next door, and a frequent visitor to planet Earth.

During the return voyage following his last visit, he collided spectacularly with his dream self and slipped into the inter-universal cosmic subconscious.

This portrait, commissioned by his clan, is an artist's interpretation (based on heresay tabloid evidence) of what the Captain's reincarnted self probably looks like.

posted by clark 11:16 PM

WHAT I'D LIKE TO SEE in the Year of the Palindrome, or what would at least make for interesting new stories:

• Boeing fires Phil Condit; cuts costs by closing the fancy new Chicago HQ, establishing a less top-heavy corporate structure, and installing a smaller main office back in Seattle.

• The new Seattle Seahawks football stadium is named after the largest consistently-profitable company still based here. At Costco Park, all soft drinks come only in 24-packs.

• Two National Hockey League teams in U.S. small markets go broke. One moves to Winnipeg, the other to the Tacoma Dome.

• Baseball commissioner Bud Selig gets "contracted."

• New York Mayor Bloomberg is forced to resign amid worldwide public outcry over his plan to tear down Yankee Stadium.

• Inventor Dean Kamen shows off a working, affordable, two-seater solar car. Every Republican state governor in America vows to never allow the thing on the streets.

• The major record labels lobby for emergency "survival" legislation allowing them to retroactively cancel all artist royalties whilst setting up government subsidies for executives' mansions and cocaine budgets.

• Clever rust-belt entrepreneurs form a joint company to buy up underused and/or abandoned factories and mills. Their clothes, shoes, DVD players, garden tools, and other products all carry the same patriotic-themed brand name (perhaps "AmeriMade"). Their ads' message: If you're not willing to pay more for an AmeriMade product, you're a bin Laden sympathizer.

• Democrats retake the U.S. House of Representatives, despite endless rants emanating from Limbaugh, Fox News Channel, the Wall St. Journal, The McLaughlin Group, etc. that anyone who doesn't vote a straight Republican ticket is a bin Laden sympathizer. The new Congressional leadership begins to openly ask whether permitting further broadcast-media consolidations would be unwise.

• The New Republic runs a lead editorial admitting it is no longer a "liberal" magazine, and hasn't been since 1983.

• Amazon.com becomes "profitable" by spinning off all its slower-selling product lines (hardware, appliances, sporting goods, etc.) to co-branded joint ventures with traditional retailers. The hardware operation, f'rinstance, becomes "Jack'sHometownHardwareAndBaitShop.com, Powered by Amazon."

• Osama bin Laden is found in November on a remote island just like a soap-opera villain, having had plastic surgery to look like a whole other person.

• A cheap, simple-to-manufacture AIDS treatment drug is announced. Unfortunately for Muslim African leaders, it turns out to be made from reprocessed pork semen.

• High definition (or at least medium-high definition) TVs finally become popular, chiefly for viewing DVDs.

• Politicians in slumping tourist states propose Nevada-style regulated brothels, sparking a rift between the corporate and moralistic branches of U.S. conservatism.

• Gangsta rap completes its disappearance from the music scene when its last major audience (white mall kids) collectively decides it would rather pretend to be Mexican.

• An NFL head coach admits reports that he's gay.

• Somebody figures out how to turn a profit from a "content-based" website. But the formula's still too labor-intensive, and the potential return too low, to interest any but the smallest mom-and-pop sites.

• A major retail chain is reorganized as a co-op of local store operators.

posted by clark 6:36 PM

Monday, December 31, 2001

JUST IN TIME for 1/1, it's the only official datebook for the Year of the Palindrome!

BUT SEMI-SERIOUSLY FOLKS, many of us would agree this has been a year of trial-'n-tribulation, and will join in virtually with me in toasting the arrival of the new year as soon as it arrives on the North American continent (in Newfoundland, at 7:30 our time).

posted by clark 11:58 AM

ARCHIVES:

• Past weblog entries.
• 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, and 1986-94 columns.
• Reviews of literature & art, nonfiction & culture criticism, movies & videos, and music & noise.
• Longer articles and essays.
• Some slightly weird little fiction pieces.
• X-Word crossword puzzles, now with on-screen solving.
• Cyber Stuff, links to cool and/or useful sites.
• A listing of many Things I Like (and a few things I hate).
• The origin and future of MISCmedia.