America as Chinatown

Thanks to President Trump, Maureen Dowd just noticed that the USA is corrupt:

Forget it, America. It’s Chinatown.

Washington, once the guarantor of American values, is a crime scene. This capital of white marble is now encircled by yellow tape, rife with mendacity, cowardice and corruption. It’s Chinatown on the Potomac.

Robert Towne, the screenwriter of the 1974 classic “Chinatown,” wrote the movie as a eulogy to great things that were lost. He said that he was not conjuring a place on a map but a state of mind: the futility of good intentions.

Or, as Raymond Chandler, the premier chronicler of Los Angeles noir, once wrote: “We still have dreams, but we know now that most of them will come to nothing. And we also most fortunately know that it really doesn’t matter.”

This is hardly news to Generation X, let alone Generation Z. But it’s interesting to see that Baby Boomers may be finally losing their childlike faith in The System. Regardless, Baby Boomer columns like Dowd’s are increasingly out-of-touch, referencing as they do former cultural touchstones like 45-year-old movies that are completely foreign to the three younger generations, to say nothing of the immigrants and children of immigrants.

White-collar journalists discover financialization

Sports Illustrated just laid off nearly half its staff:

Sports Illustrated cut more than 40 members of its staff on Thursday as part of a restructuring plan. The layoffs were haphazardly executed, with management scheduling meetings Wednesday evening, only to cancel them the next day about 10 minutes before the planned start time. The meetings ended up taking place four hours later, with one scheduled for staffers who were getting laid off and a separate meeting for those who were not, according to a source.

theMaven, which licensed the rights to Sports Illustrated’s print and digital publications in June, is behind the decision as it takes full ownership of the company from Meredith Corporation. Meredith sold the Sports Illustrated brand and intellectual property to marketing company Athletic Brands Group earlier this year but had agreed to manage the media business for up to two years.

Rumors about impending changes and layoffs have loomed over the company ever since theMaven took over. The Seattle-based startup also announced in June that Ross Levinsohn has agreed to serve as CEO of the new company, which will be named Sports Illustrated Media. Levinsohn had a short stint as publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Times, but was put on unpaid leave in 2018 over “questionable behavior” in his past, which he denied.

theMaven plans to hire about 200 contractors to increase Sports Illustrated’s local sports coverage, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Sports Illustrated has been subjected to some major changes in the last few years. After being sold to Meredith Corporation by Time Inc. in 2018, ABG bought the brand and intellectual property in May for $110 million. Meredith continued to publish the magazine and website.

The unusual structure of that deal suggested that the Sports Illustrated brand is much more valuable than the magazine.

The sniping is amusing. Who cares if the layoffs were “haphazardly executed”. And it’s even more amusing to note the emotional, near-hysterical coverage these steep cuts at an elite journalistic institution are receiving considering the way the news media has generally ignored, when they haven’t openly sneered at, the suffering of blue-collar Americans.

That’s what is so enraging about Thursday’s blood-letting: It didn’t need to happen. Sports Illustrated did not have to be turned into whatever it will now become.

I asked sports journalist Patrick Hruby for his reaction to the news. “I think Sports Illustrated was caught by two different forces,” he said. “The first is the broader shift from print to digital media and the reality that in the digital world, Google and Facebook have gobbled all the advertising money. That money isn’t coming back, so there was going to be contraction to begin with. But it’s the second force we need to pay attention to. It’s the second force that turns a contraction into destruction. That is the fact that prestigious legacy journalism has been hit within the same bullshit industry—private equity—that’s ravaged so much of the journalistic world. Their business model is not ‘let’s manage a contraction.’ Instead, it’s ‘smash and grab.’ They are vampires bleeding these organizations dry and then selling them for parts. This is of course not limited to just journalism. It’s the over-financialization of our economy. What has happened to Sports Illustrated is what has happened to this country.”

The whole deal was financed by a $54 million loan to the vampires from the bigger vampires. This is the inevitable end result of usury; the methodical strip-mining of the economy.

If at first you don’t succeed…

Try, try again. The Democrats double down after their first “whistleblower” turned out to have no actual knowledge of the events he was describing:

The attorney representing the whistleblower who flagged President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine says a second whistleblower has now come forward.

Mark Zaid told ABC News on Sunday that he is now representing a second whistleblower who has first hand knowledge of events.

Zaid, a Washington lawyer, is already representing the whistleblower at the center of the impeachment inquiry into Trump.

The first whistleblower, who said Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden, is a CIA officer and at one point was assigned to work at the White House, sources said.

The second person who has come forward is also reportedly an intelligence official.

Of course, they said the first guy had first-hand knowledge of events too. Until he was asked to provide it. Interestingly enough, this is the same lawyer who is handling the lawsuit for the Marvel artist accused of tortious interference between Antarctic Press and Comics Matter.

An interesting and unexpected nexus. I wonder why they’re so desperate to stop the Trump administration from looking into Ukraine? I don’t suppose the massive donations to the Clinton Foundation have anything to do with it, do they?

Vatican III?

The Vatican is discussing the possibility of married priests… and other things:

This Sunday kicks off a three-week meeting of bishops at the Vatican to discuss, among other things, ordaining some married men as priests to help alleviate a shortage of Catholic clergy in the nine countries of the Amazon region.

Pope Francis convened the meeting, called a synod, to discuss environmental and religious issues in the Amazon and give special attention to the needs of indigenous communities there. The region includes parts of Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Surinam and French Guiana. The Vatican has invited 184 bishops and priests from those countries and from around the world to participate in the synod and vote on measures. Thirty-five women, mostly religious sisters and nuns, have been invited but will not have voting rights.

There will be 17 representatives of the Amazon’s indigenous populations, including 9 women, will attend as well.

But before it even begins, the synod has become the center of controversy for both conservatives and liberals.

The Pope told bishops from the region to “be bold” in their proposals for the meeting and Bishop Erwin Krautler, the church’s Secretary for the Commission on the Pan-Amazon Region, says he hopes the meeting will address not only ordaining married men, but women too.

“We don’t just speak about men because it’s exclusionary,” Krautler told CNN. “We also want to include women.”

The possibility that centuries of Catholic tradition of a celibate priesthood might be overturned has caused conservative outrage.

Since I’m not a Catholic, I don’t believe my opinion matters here. But, for those who happen to be interested, I don’t think the abandonment of the traditional celibacy requirement for priests would be a bad thing. Married priests, even with the concomitant risk of nepotism, are vastly to be preferred to gay priests, which has been the reality since at least Vatican II.

Furthermore, the Biblical requirements for a deacon not only don’t preclude marriage, they actually require it, and the fruits of priestly celibacy have not been generally positive.

Considerably more troubling is the possibility that this Amazonian synod will be used to push the ordainment of women, which would mark the beginning of the end of the Roman Catholic Church.

Fake impeachment proceedings

I was wondering why all the sound and fury about impeachment didn’t seem to show any signs of leading to an actual vote on an impeachment inquiry. It’s because all the activity is just kabuki meant to stir up excitement and distract the electorate, not actually investigate anything concerning Ukraine.

It’s quite obvious what the Democrats are doing. They have not had a vote on the floor of the House to start a formal impeachment inquiry because if they were to have such a vote, under the House rules for impeachment, the Republicans would get subpoena power.

In order to avoid giving the Republicans subpoena power, they are doing impeachment lite with these six different committees who are claiming it’s an impeachment inquiry, and they are trying to subpoena people and get documents without having an impeachment vote on the floor. That is why the White House said we are not going to cooperate with this kangaroo court.

The reason they don’t dare give Republicans subpoena power is that the corruption of the Obama administration, particularly that which surrounded the then-Vice President and then-Secretary of State would be exposed and placed on the record.

Of course, Captain Underoos doesn’t get it, and with his impeccable sense of timing, has concluded that his big moment has finally arrived at last. At this point, I think we can all agree that despite his copious flaws, the stoner-in-chief Obama actually proved to be a less horrific president than either McCain or Romney would have been.

Mailvox: crushing in Indiana

An early and succinct report of last night’s show in Indiana:

Drove 3 hours to attend the Hobart, Indiana show yesterday.
It. Was. Awesome.

When people put in this kind of effort to attend a Big Bear show and afterwards conclude the effort was well worth it, you know he’s crushing it. On a not-entirely-unrelated note, if you haven’t picked up a Signed, Limited Edition Collector’s DVD with the Special, the Documentary, and additional footage yet, there are still 143 left.

I’m particularly pleased to hear this because the theatre in Hobart was the target of the most concentrated SJW attacks and it was the primary candidate for the Special.

So stop negotiating, champ

Well, he wasn’t wrong. President Trump needs to stop listening to his “aides”:

President Donald Trump erupted at aides in an F-bomb-laden rant a week before Christmas last year, fuming over headlines that announced he was giving up his campaign promise of making Mexico pay for a border wall – and instead handing the country a 10-figure check.

The administration had made a deal with America’s neighbors to the south, one that Trump hated, that would send $10.6 billion to four countries. More than half would go to Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. But Mexico would collect $4.8 billion.

The money was meant to help governments tackle poverty, drug trafficking and other violence – the root causes of the illegal immigration wave the president campaigned against. But on December 18, 2018, the national news media he loves to hate framed it as a surrender.

‘My f***ing friends are calling me,’ the president yelled at aides who had convinced him to make the deal. ‘This is the stupidest s**t you’ve ever done. Why the f**k would we do this?’

‘I’m not getting $5 billion for the wall, and instead I’m paying Mexico $5 billion? What the f**k am I getting out of this?’ he boomed.

It was incredibly stupid. But it’s ultimately Trump’s fault for caving constantly instead of following through on his threats. This is the problem with a negotiator. They never grasp that sometimes the best deal is no deal.

Giving up a major campaign promise “because Mexico won’t cooperate” is entirely retarded. The US has the largest military in the world. Mexico doesn’t need to cooperate; there are many other ways to keep invaders out than relying on the Mexicans to do it.

Diversity & Comics reviews Alt-Hero Volume One

It’s a fair and detailed review of the six issues collected. I disagree, of course, with the idea that comics must be relentless BIF! – SOCK! – POW! action, as I see no problem with what is described here as “the talking head problem”, or as we novelists refer to it, dialogue and character development. And while I understand that not everyone is interested in current events, I am, and it would be very strange indeed if a fictional battle between globalists and nationalists did not bear some resemblances to the real-world version.

Indeed, as some have noted, the events taking place in the Alt-Hero world have even been observed to have anticipated events taking place in the real one. I also found it interesting that D&C so strongly preferred the US-based story to the Europe-based one, as it’s been my vague impression that a majority of AH fans tend to prefer the latter.

But regardless, I appreciate the review, which is one of the first to look at the entire volume one omnibus.