War Torn: kickoff of the New York Times' penetrating new series investigating the violence that comes home when our soldiers do.
posted by hermitosis
on Jan 14, 2008 -
58 comments
This Flash tool from the New York Times shows you how many times each candidate has named each of the other candidates, suggesting which candidates the others perceive as worthy of addressing. It's a very neat and efficient visualization tool. Guess who everyone can't stop mentioning?
posted by Brian James
on Dec 21, 2007 -
39 comments
Reagan at Neshoba. Some time ago, a
blog post was authored at Mahablog which suggested that movement politics can best be understood when their rhetoric is viewed as a series of metaphors, with an allegory made to a spectacular episode of Stark Trek: The Next Generation featuring Paul Winfield titled
"Darmok".
Picard and crew stumble across an alien race that speaks only in metaphor. The alien captain, frustrated by the failure to communicate, transports Picard to the surface of a planet, where they must learn to communicate or die. The alien captain does finally reach Picard, but dies as a result of his injuries battling an invisible predator.
By way of comparison, examine Candidate Ronald Reagan's speech at Neshoba [
audio, 57MB,
via,
additional context here]. Some pundits are claiming that it is
an example of the Southern Strategy codified as dog-whistle politics, whilst
others view it as an honest mistake, and others still find an
inconvenient long sequence of other "honest mistakes".
[more inside]
posted by rzklkng
on Nov 13, 2007 -
128 comments
In the wake of Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the Wall Street Journal, several of the paper's top reporters have left for safer ground. Among them is Tara Parker-Pope, who joined the New York Times on
October 3rd. Her blog,
Well, currently accounts for three of the paper's top ten e-mailed stories: in addition to number 1, Five Easy Ways to Go Organic, she has number 5,
Shhh...My Child Is Sleeping (in My Bed, Um, With Me), and number 8,
Drug-Resistant Staph: What You Need to Know. Touché Rupert.
posted by alms
on Oct 25, 2007 -
23 comments
"I called [Stephen] Colbert with a dare: if he thought it was so easy to be a Times Op-Ed pundit, he should try it. He came right over. In a moment of weakness, I had staged a coup d’moi. I just hope he leaves at some point. He’s typing and drinking and threatening to 'shave Paul Krugman with a broken bottle.'”
posted by NotMyselfRightNow
on Oct 15, 2007 -
56 comments
onoes! teenz on teh pr0n webs! It's been a year since I posted about
Stickam, and in that time, one would be naïve to think that a community of unmoderated videos broadcast live from the private and semi-anonymous bedrooms of the world would not result in
epic lulz (nsfw). To no one's surprise, disgruntled Stickam ex-VP Alex Becker says
Stickam shares office space, staff, and equipment with live pornographic video providers -- this via
NYT tech writer Brad Stone. Cue the
"think of the CHILDRUNZ!" moral
panic. But popular websites being related to or backed up by prurient interest are nothing new: Wikipeda predecessor
Bomis was once accused of having
"softore porn" in its "Babes" section, and of course everyone knows
porn drives technology. What do you think the internet is
for? But if you use Stickam and this bothers you, the burgeoning field of live embeddable Flash-based webcam video streaming is rife with alternatives:
uStream.tv,
Justin.tv,
BlogTV,
Mogulus, and
Operator11, just to name some -- but there'll be naked girls on those too. I guarantee it.
posted by brownpau
on Aug 6, 2007 -
41 comments
Facing Life With a Lethal Gene. Say you're in your early twenties. For years you've seen members of your family twist and turn invouluntarily and developing dementia due to your family history of Huntington's Disease. Even if you have the gene for the disease, the symptoms are unlikely to hit until you're 50. Would you want to find out if you're going to share the same fate as your relatives, or live life out as much as you can unaware if you're going to suffer from it too?
Another touching human interest story from the NY Times which has had a bunch of these recently.
posted by portisfreak
on Mar 17, 2007 -
54 comments
Same Old Dogs, Same Old Tricks. In a
rare act of bipartisan cooperation, the House of Representatives passed a group of bills strengthening the FOIA (
HR 1309), streamlining access to Presidential Libraries (
HR 1255), and expanding safeguards for whistleblowers (
still in process, HR 985), with those that were passed having a veto-proof margin. The
White House sharply criticized these acts of transparency as unconstitutional, a threat on the established separation of Powers, and as a threat to national security [
pdf]. All of which heralds back to an earlier time, that
looks vaguely familiar...
posted by rzklkng
on Mar 15, 2007 -
23 comments
If you have a *.edu email address, you can now access the normally for-fee New York Times
TimesSelect service
for free, which gets you access to archived articles and special content.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Mar 13, 2007 -
52 comments
The Must-Do List. The NY Times lists the administration policies that congress must reverse if it intends to undo the damage done to America by the Bush Administration.
posted by empath
on Mar 4, 2007 -
17 comments
Blacked out text in your newspaper. The White House has attempted
to heavily censor parts of a proposed op-ed about Iran. So tomorrow, the NYT will run the op-ed with black redaction marks, and provide a list of non-classified sources for the exact material the administration claims is sensitive.
posted by mulligan
on Dec 21, 2006 -
76 comments
was there just a second ago... Cop Watch LA, a police watchdog group, posted the video on YouTube,
said organizer Joaquin Cienfuegos. Cienfuegos said the video was shot by a neighbor of Cardenas with a cell phone camera. The neighbor gave it to Cardenas' family, who then gave it to Cop Watch, according to Cienfuegos.
posted by Bravocharlie
on Nov 11, 2006 -
83 comments
Newsfilter. Surveillenve of everything you do online: "It was clear that they would go beyond kiddie porn and terrorism and use it for general law enforcement." Offline: "I'm John Doe, and if I had told you before today that the F.B.I. was requesting library records, I
could have gone to jail." Previously,
here. On your phone? We've already discussed
that, too.
posted by |n$eCur3
on Jun 2, 2006 -
36 comments
[nytimesfilter] Why is the New York Times
obsessed with
doom metal? For a newspaper that gives perfunctory (at best) coverage to non-classical, non-top-40 music, the publication of two articles about one
marginal subgenre of indie rock seems incredibly conspiratorial.
posted by stemlot
on May 29, 2006 -
55 comments
The War on Franklin (Orig. from the NYTimes). It's only fitting as we approach the
tercentennial of the birth of the First American,
Benjamin Franklin, that there is an
ongoing debate as to whether we should "
sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety" and if we deserve either. To be sure, Franklin is likely the seminal Colonial American, who's
philosophy,
inventions, self-determination,
self-improvement,
entrepeneurship, and
witicisms underpin most elements of modern American society, politics, and culture, as well as
having edited our founding document, the Declaration of Independence. But Franklin the man was also self-involved, a neglectful spouse and parent, and (likely) a serial philanderer, as well as having never held elected office. (History erases many of the sins of the
Foundering Fathers). Surely
increasing criticism of both the man and his relavency is soon to follow. Perhaps we can all strive to emulate Franklin's greatest skill -
the art of compromise.
posted by rzklkng
on Jan 5, 2006 -
75 comments
The author
Rodney Whitaker is dead, taking along with him Trevanian, Nicholas Seare, Benat Le Cagot, and several of his other pen names. Under the name Trevanian he wrote
The Eiger Sanction (1972) (which became a
Clint Eastwood movie of the same name),
Shibumi (1979),
The Loo Sanction (1973),
The Summer of Katya (1983),
The Main (1976),
Incident at Twenty-Mile (1998), and others. In real life, Whitaker was the Chairman of the Radio, Television, and Film Department at the
University of Texas. He was believe to be 74 years old, and died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow
on Dec 17, 2005 -
14 comments
Conservative Blogs Rock! NEW YORK In an argument sure to be challenged in certain sectors of the blogosphere, a story in The New York Times magazine coming up this Sunday declares that conservative blogs continue to best liberal blogs in political and electoral influence.
posted by Sagres
on Dec 9, 2005 -
51 comments
Is Maureen Dowd necessary? Asks Katie Rolph (Slate). I'm not sure... but from
a big article in the NY Times Magazine section last Sunday, to
a spread in New York Magazine this week, all to support her new
book release, she sure as hell seems to be everywhere these days. Rolph sums up Dowd pretty nicely, though:
... Dowd is extremely fond of clever stereotyping. But this strategy is better-suited to satirizing a real person (say, President Bush) than it is to offering insights into the already cartoonish "war" between the sexes. In Are Men Necessary? she gravitates toward quotes like this: "Deep down all men want the same thing: a virgin in a gingham dress," or "if there's one thing men fear it's a woman who uses her critical faculties..."
Her shallow insights are sometimes amusing in the context of 250 word op-ed, but a whole book, press junket and PR tour? The woman who suggests that oedipal conflict is at the root of current US foreign policy speaks out on feminism and culture, and we're supposed to care? Strangely enough, I do. I must be hypnotized by the red hair.
posted by psmealey
on Nov 4, 2005 -
218 comments
"But nine seasons on, South Park is a bona fide cultural phenomenon that has risen above its own raunch to become an up-to-the-minute social commentary on some of the most controversial issues of the day." A
NY Times piece on SP as a significant cultural signpost.
posted by JPowers
on Oct 19, 2005 -
60 comments
NY Times will be going pay-only for access to columns by Paul Krugman, Thomas Friedman, and Maureen Dowd. On the 19th of Sept! And I assume the others like Herbert and Frank will drop behind the iron curtain as well. These are obviously some of the most blogged about and emailed content on the NYT site. Do you think it will be worth $49.95 year (it does come with 100 archive articles, which is admittedly pretty sweet)? Do you think that bloggers will stop linking to those columnists? Is this the end of free?
posted by zpousman
on Sep 13, 2005 -
85 comments
Paul Krugman and Daniel Okrent get into a pissing match. In his
final column as New York Times ombudsman, Okrent stated that Krugman, the New York Times columnist, "has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults." The paper gave the two of them some webspace to discuss the matter. The
result is catty and entertaining, but the tone is certainly more vicious than I'd expected. They really don't seem to like each other very much.
posted by Tin Man
on May 31, 2005 -
70 comments
The Tao of Skinny-Dipping. [nytimes reg required]
After long days spent defending their positions atop New York's most competitive fields, Manhattan's alpha males need to unwind. From mistresses to treadmills, these men have as many forms of relaxation as sources of stress. But some of the city's titans have a secret. They meet around private pools in private clubs and swim together, naked.
posted by jba
on Apr 28, 2005 -
27 comments
Thomas L. Friedman, award winning NY Times columnist and author of
The Lexus and the Olive Tree,
Longitudes and Attitudes, and
From Beirut to Jerusalem, will publish his fourth book,
The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, this week. An article adopted from the book, "
It’s a Flat World After All", was printed in the NY Times Magazine today:
In 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail for India, going west. He had the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. He never did find India, but he called the people he met 'Indians' and came home and reported to his king and queen: 'The world is round.' I set off for India 512 years later. I knew just which direction I was going. I went east. I had Lufthansa business class, and I came home and reported only to my wife and only in a whisper: 'The world is flat.'
posted by NotMyselfRightNow
on Apr 3, 2005 -
52 comments
Blogs contribute to political reform in Iran (New York Times): Former vice-president of Iran,
Mohammad Ali Abtahi, said that he learned through the Internet about the huge gap between government officials and the younger generation.
"We do not understand each other and cannot have a dialogue," he said. "As government officials, we receive a lot of confidential reports about what goes on in society. But I have felt that I learned a lot more about people and the younger generation by reading their Web logs and receiving about 40 to 50 e-mails every day. This is so different than reading about society in those bulletins from behind our desks."
posted by hoder
on Jan 16, 2005 -
7 comments
