Tag: media

An Unblinking Journey of Autumnal Despair

I rather enjoyed this parody of a New York literati’s take on It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown:

24:00 Lucy bobs for an apple. Snoopy is in the tub somehow. Lucy feigns disgust at the discovery.

Schroeder, a musical Faust, bangs away at a toy piano, coaxing impossible, darkly miraculous tones from the infernal instrument. The Devil’s notes pour out from his fingers like the blood offering from a slaughtered goat above the sacrifice-font.

Snoopy, utterly helpless in the music’s thrall, dances and weeps, dances and weeps. He stumbles back out into the night, disoriented. The music, the music.

Sci Phi Journal #2

Quite a few New Release subscribers opted for SCI PHI JOURNAL #1 as their free book, so I expect more than few people might be pleased to know that the publisher is permitting Castalia House customers to purchase SCI PHI JOURNAL #2 a few days prior to its official release on November 1st.  The second issue of SCI PHI JOURNAL features short stories, book reviews, and some interesting articles such as “On the Ethics of Supersoldiers” by Patrick S. Baker and “The Making of the Fellowship” by the excellent fantasy essayist Tom Simon. it also contains the first part of a serial, Beyond the Mist by Ben Zwycky, and a history that never-was by Castalia House standout John C. Wright, entitled “Prophetic & Apotropaic Science Fiction”.

From the reviews of the premier issue:

  • It’s a bit tragic that you’d need a somewhat
    specialized magazine to read stuff that treats Sci Fi, philosophy and
    Christianity seriously and with respect – but here it is. 
  • This was an enjoyable read, well worth the price. As with anything in
    this format, the individual entries are of varying quality, but none
    were all bad. “Domo” was my personal favorite.
  • Enjoyed it enormously. The stories are well written. The magazine is thought provoking. 

SCI PHI JOURNAL #2 is now available in the Castalia Store for $3.99. 

Everything has fallen into place

Now isn’t that just unfortunate:

Former CBC radio star Jian Ghomeshi took to Facebook Sunday, publishing an extraordinary account of what he says led to his termination from the public broadcaster.  The CBC announced Sunday it was severing ties with Mr. Ghomeshi, citing
“information” it had recently learned about the popular host of Q on CBC Radio and CBC TV….

Mr. Ghomeshi details an “on and off” relationship with a woman in her mid-20s, which included “adventurous forms of sex that included role-play, dominance and submission.” After he opted to end the relationship, Mr. Ghomeshi said an anonymous woman began reaching out to his former partners, “to tell them she had been a victim of abusive relations with me. In other words, someone was reframing what had been an ongoing consensual relationship as something nefarious.”

Mr. Ghomeshi said a freelance writer started probing the allegations and he has “lived with the threat that this stuff would be thrown out there.” He said he informed CBC of the allegations and the broadcaster was part of a team that dealt “with this for months.”

“They said they’re not concerned about the legal side,” Mr. Ghomeshi wrote. “But then they said that this type of sexual behavior was unbecoming of a prominent host on the CBC.”

Probing the allegations. Living with the threat. Unbecoming sexual behavior. Indeed. In case you’d forgotten, Mr. Ghomeshi once hosted Rapey McRaperson and helped him record some vocals for the Pink Rabbit Posse’s hit number. I can’t help but wonder: what panoply of perversions will freelance writers eventually uncover about his co-vocalist?

Ask not for whom the pinkshirts come
Crawling on hand and knee.
A-slavering from their forked tongues
They come, they come for thee!

#Gamergate: an open letter

Joel Johnson
Editorial Director
Gawker Media

Dear Mr. Johnson,

As a professional game reviewer, game developer, and game designer with 22 years of experience in the game industry who has worked
closely with Intel in the past, I would like to request that you
immediately ask Max Read to resign from Gawker Media for the blatant
disregard he has shown for the gaming community as well as one of
its most important corporate supporters. Mr. Read wrote:

  1. “So let’s say it now: Intel is run by craven idiots. It
    employs pusillanimous morons. It lacks integrity.”
  2. He dishonestly described GamerGate as “dishonest fascists” and
    “an ill-informed mob of alienated and resentful video
    game-playing teenagers and young men
  3. “He, and later I, made the tactical mistake of
    publicly treating Gamergate with the contempt and flippancy that
    it deserves.”

Mr. Johnson, GamerGate does not consist of fascists. It is not an
ill-informed mob. It is not limited to teenagers, to men, or to
white people. It does not deserve to be treated with contempt and
flippancy. GamerGate is a broad spectrum of the gaming community,
including players and developers, and consists of men and women of
all ages who wish nothing more than to simply continue to design,
develop, and play the games that we wish to design, develop, and
play without being attacked by professional political activists,
corrupt game journalists, and publicity-seeking independent game
developers.

And speaking as one who has worked with upper level executives at
Intel, including Andy Grove, I can personally testify that Intel
is most definitely not run by idiots.

Mr. Johnson, I think you will recognize that both the game and
mainstream medias have exhibited considerable bias with regards to
the issue of GamerGate and have failed to cover it in a manner
that can be described as either fair or objective. While there has
obviously been some problematic behavior on both sides, I do not
see how it can possibly be in Gawker Media’s interest to continue
attacking both its readers and its advertisers alike. I hope you
will see fit to remove those employees and contributors who have
been inclined to do so, beginning with Mr. Read.

Thank you,
Vox Day

In other #GamerGate-related news, Castalia House has posted its statement on the matter which features insightful quotes from Popehat’s Clark as well as Castalia author William S. Lind. And Teepublic has a #GamerGate shirt out that is very retro and is all but guaranteed to set the usual suspects to frothing at the mouth on sight.

And Nero has another great article on #GamerGate, entitled: “Incredibly, GamerGate Is Winning – But You Won’t Read that Anywhere In the Terrified Liberal Media”:

Perhaps it won’t surprise you to learn that microchip manufacturers
and car companies are pretty sympathetic to the concerns of male
consumers. But some of the things said to me–all, sadly, on condition
of anonymity–have been nothing short of remarkable.

There’s the Intel vice president who told me via email that GamerGate
was “doing great work” and that he was “sick of slander and
self-loathing from the press”. He was talking about male journalists who
do misandrist feminists’ work for them.
“I am pressing that team, it’s not mine, but I am exerting influence
when I can, to stop spending money with people who hate themselves and
hate our clients,” he added by phone later.

Then consider the product manager, who was happy to be identified as
“senior management at a German car manufacturer”, who told me that, “the
violence against women is unacceptable and we cannot support it, but we
will not financially support people who insult our customers either”. The manager told me: “We would prefer not to make headlines like
Intel. But you should expect to see strategic changes in how we spend in
coming years. It is very much an open question inside the company and
we are watching closely.”

Finally, the executive at a household name video game developer who
said: “Opinion is sharply divided within the company. But that’s
remarkable in itself, given how totally the media has slammed and lied
about gamers. We’re split straight down the middle. One thing I can tell you, though, is that when claims about gamers
being woman-hating or abusive start to unravel, because journalists
didn’t check them properly before running these ‘bleeding heart’
editorials, it’s very difficult to win people back from there. So God
help Kotaku and Polygon if any of these women are shown to be making
stuff up.”

How fortunate for the anti-GamerGate crowd that women (and, presumably, men wearing dresses) never lie about rapedeath threats….

Dems are getting worried

The checked-out president is beginning to make Democrats, both politicians and in the media, observably nervous and twitchy. Consider Frank Bruno at the New York Times:

Rationally or not, this is one of those rare moments when Americans who typically tune out so much of what leaders say are paying rapt attention, and Obama’s style of communication hasn’t risen fully to the occasion. Even as he canceled campaign appearances and created a position — Ebola czar — that we were previously told wasn’t necessary, he spoke with that odd dispassion of his, that maddening distance.

About the ban, he said, “I don’t have a philosophical objection necessarily.” About the czar, he said that it might be good to have a person “to make sure that we’re crossing all the T’s and dotting all the I’s going forward.” He’s talking theory and calligraphy while Americans are focused on blood, sweat and tears.

Ebola is his presidency in a petri dish. It’s an example already of his tendency to talk too loosely at the outset of things, so that his words come back to haunt him. There was the doctor you could keep under his health plan until, well, you couldn’t. There was the red line for Syria that he didn’t have to draw and later erased.

With Ebola, he said almost two weeks ago that “we’re doing everything that we can” with an “all-hands-on-deck approach.” But on Wednesday and Thursday he announced that there were additional hands to be put on deck and that we could and would do more. The shift fit his pattern: not getting worked up in the early stages, rallying in the later ones.

It’s more understandable in this case than in others, because when it comes to statements about public health, the line between adequately expressed concern and a license for hysteria is thin and not easily determined. Still, he has to make Americans feel that he understands their alarm, no matter how irrational he deems it, and that they’re being leveled with, not talked down to, not handled. And he has a ways to go.

“If you were his parent, you’d want to shake him,” said one Democratic strategist, who questioned where Obama’s passion was and whether, even this deep into his presidency, he appreciated one of the office’s most vital functions: deploying language, bearing, symbols and ceremony to endow Americans with confidence in who’s leading them and in how they’re being led.

Right now in this country there’s a crisis of confidence, and of competence, and that’s the fertile ground in which the Ebola terror flowers. That’s the backdrop for whatever steps Obama and Frieden take from here. With the right ones, they can go a long way toward calming people who are anxious not just about Ebola but about America. I don’t even want to think about the wrong ones.

That is not the writing of a happy rabbit. After all, it is pretty hard to argue for more government intervention as one watches an indifferent president lurch half-heartedly from one potential disaster into the next one.

Russia takes on the globalist PR

Limiting foreign media ownership wouldn’t be a bad idea for the USA either.

Russia appears poised for a clampdown on western involvement in its media with
new legislation limiting foreign media ownership gaining momentum in
the Duma. Russian lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly backed a bill that would
restrict foreign ownership of the country’s media properties to 20 per
cent. At present, foreign stakes in radio and television are capped at
50 per cent, but no such restrictions apply to print media.

If adopted into law, the proposed changes would uproot the Russia
business of some of the world’s leading media groups and could force a
reshuffle of the Russian media industry….

The draft legislation also prevents foreigners from appointing top
editors and otherwise exerting control by more formally separating the
ownership and publisher roles. “With all these details, this is a piece
of legislation that has not been written hastily but with careful
consideration to close all potential loopholes,” said the foreign
executive.

I’ve never quite understood how having foreigners own your corporations is supposed to be beneficial to anyone but the propagandists. Especially with the credit money system. Write a few bonds, “loan” the borrowed money to a state corporation, then have it buy up a controlling interest in the stock of a publicly traded media corporation belonging to the country you want to control. Congratulations, you now own a propaganda outlet with a mainline connection direct into the communications bloodstream of that country. It’s not exactly rocket science.

It’s rather remarkable how so many of Putin’s actions appear sensible, while so many of Obama’s appear to be so haplessly counterproductive as to be almost sinister.

The agenda-driven sports media

It’s a bit amusing to see Mike Florio backtracking after repeatedly demanding that the Ravens provide evidence of their claims that the ESPN report was full of errors:

One of the more glaring problems with ESPN’s story regarding the Ravens’ mishandling of the Ray Rice investigation relates to the text messages sent by owner Steve Bisciotti to Rice after the team cut him. In the story, ESPN presents the text messages in italics.  While quotes weren’t used, the technique created the clear impression that the text messages were being quoted verbatim. The surrounding context reinforced the idea that exact quotes were being shared…. ESPN has acknowledged that the italicized text messages did not reflect actual quotes.

“We understand the confusion surrounding our use of italics and recognize we could have been more clear,” ESPN said Tuesday in a statement. “Most importantly, the information in our story about the contents of the texts was consistent with what the team released.”

While the contents were consistent, the clear and obvious error in the presentation invites fair questions regarding whether other aspects of the story are incorrect, especially in light of the strong (albeit belated) written response the Ravens provided to 15 different aspects of the report.

This specific flaw also carries with it some irony.  At a time when the Ravens fairly have been hammered for failing to ask for the notorious elevator video, ESPN didn’t ask the Ravens to confirm the precise contents of the text messages sent by Bisciotti. Instead, ESPN asked only if Bisciotti sent two text messages to Rice.

The story from ESPN doesn’t disclose that ESPN asked the Ravens only to confirm that Bisciotti sent two text messages and not to confirm the contents of the text messages.  But the words selected by the authors invite a perception that the Ravens were informed of the alleged language of the text messages: “Asked about the text messages Friday, the team did not deny Bisciotti had sent them: ‘His text messages to Ray reflect his belief that everyone is capable of redemption and that others, including players, can learn from Ray’s experience.’”

So, ESPN is making up quotes, misrepresented their communications with the Ravens, and claimed that Ray Rice was watching the Ravens-Bengals game from his home
with former teammate AQ Shipley even though Shipley was on the
field for the Colts at that time, but Florio still thinks that we should take their report seriously? After all, the Ravens response was, in Florio’s opinion, “belated”.

At this point, it’s difficult to rely upon the sports media to get the final score of the games right. Assuming they bother to report it in the first place, given all the socially vital crusades for which they have to find space.

That being said, good on Bill Simmons for being willing to step up and say exactly what he thinks about Roger Goodell. He may be on the opposite side of the fence, but at least he is genuinely calling them as he sees them:

“Goodell, if he didn’t know what was on that tape, he’s a liar. I’m just
saying it. He is lying. If you put him up on a lie detector test, that
guy would fail. For all these people to pretend they didn’t know is such
[expletive] [expletive]. It really is, it’s such [expletive]
[expletive]. For him to go into that press conference and pretend
otherwise — I was so insulted.”

I think Goodell was lying too. I don’t think the tape justified one additional day of suspension for Ray Rice, but I don’t think there is any doubt that the NFL Commissioner didn’t know what was on it.

Wikileftia

I’ve previously pointed out the way that the Wikipedia editors seek to minimize those they dislike and elevate those they support. But their left-wing bias is getting increasingly out of hand, as evidenced by their rationalizations for not permitting criticism of their favorite token black scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson:

Keep in mind, these are actual quotes from Wikipedia editors discussing why it’s okay to airbrush history in order to protect their precious prophet.

1. “Telling a funny anecdote with fudgy details to make a joke/point is not a controversy, its what public speakers do.”

2. “It doesn’t matter if we can demonstrate it happened or not, many things happen in many people lives, we don’t write each of them into every persons biography.”

3. “[W]e may have to leave this up for a few days until S Davis drops his ‘censorship’ campaign.”

4.”So, [Tyson]‘s not making a point about Bush, he’s making a point about the lost opportunity of 1.3 billion people not contributing to the advancement of human knowledge.”

5. “This is thus far a relatively insignificant story pushed by a fringe attack blog[.]“

6. “We shouldn’t be asserting that ‘No evidence exists’ based upon the current sourcing.”

7. “There are literally thousands and thousands of articles about this topic […] If this was something important, then you would see a lot more sources covering.”

8. “[I]t is a non-notable commentary that begun in an obscure media site and was picked up with even more obscure sites/blogs.”

9. “[T]his is being kept off because Wikipedia is deeply conservative in the non-political meaning of the word.”

There are a plethora of examples of this Wikileftia bias. If you look at the page, about me you’ll see that a “Feud with John Scalzi” is apparently my primary View, but you won’t see any corresponding “Feud with Vox Day” on the Scalzi page even though a) he is the one who started it back in 2005, and b) he is the one who keeps talking to various media outlets about it, thereby rendering it notable.

The worst offenders may be the champions of Sam Harris. In the criticism section, they actually offer defenses of the very criticisms made, and the most substantive critiques, such as my complete demolition of his Red State argument, which was so successful that he dropped it entirely, are not there.

Wikipedia isn’t entirely useless. But for any public figure of any political controversy at all, it is entirely misleading.

Of fraudulent lists and fake “bestsellers”

File 770 sounds a little disappointed to discover that an SF “bestseller” on the NYT Bestsellers List doesn’t necessarily indicate the mainstream adoption of SF:

I’m a science fiction fan, yet I’m constantly being surprised to discover how that shapes my thinking. Although I know bestseller lists are artificial constructs, I also know they are constructs dominated by mainstream fiction and literary biases. Consequently, when a science fiction writer appears on the New York Times bestseller list I don’t ask how, I just shout “Hooray!” But now a Higher Critic has explained why I should be dissatisfied and suspicious about how they got there.

And now I am.

Vox Day unfavorably compared John Scalzi to Larry Correia based on alleged manipulation of the bestseller list. But isn’t Correia’s status as a bestselling author the same reason people believe Correia is the gold standard?

Even here, all Larry Correia ever did was point out two times when his books made the New York Times best seller list. Which they did. But both times the books disappeared from the list the following week. One and done….

I’m perfectly happy that Larry Correia is an NYT bestselling author. (Which I said in the post.) But since Correia and Scalzi both have experienced the same one-and-done pattern, then why would anybody doubt that Scalzi’s listings are also the result of real sales, Vox Day notwithstanding?

Actually, I didn’t compare them. I merely referenced Scalzi’s own comments on the subject. As always, Larry Correia is perfectly capable of speaking for himself. As for me, I answered Mr. Glyer on his own blog as follows: There are two reasons for the difference between Scalzi’s one-week showings and Mr. Correia’s. 1. Correia’s Amazon rankings at the time correlated correctly with his NYT bestseller listing. Scalzi’s Amazon rankings aren’t egregiously off, but they’re not high enough to be credible. 2. Baen Books is not known for attempting to game various awards and bestseller lists. Tor Books, which has won the Locus Award for Best Publisher 27 years in a row, among other things, is.

Does anyone really and truly believe that whereas OLD MAN’S WAR and THE GHOST BRIGADES did not sell well enough to make the NYT Bestseller list, FUZZY NATION did?

All one had to do was look at the Amazon rankings to see that LOCK IN was not selling well enough to have made the bestseller list without a bulk-sale marketing campaign. And as noted on File 770, I had an inkling LOCK IN would not only be on the NYT bestseller list, but be there for a single week before disappearing.

These faux bestsellers aren’t any great secret. It’s just one of the ways the Big Five publishers promote their favored authors. Talk to a top editor or a publishing executive if you don’t believe me; I’m not making this stuff up. Tor is simply trying to massage public perceptions to bump a high mid-list writer into reliable bestseller status.

And then, as it happened, the Washington Examiner happened to address the issue of the unreliability of this particular list today:

The New York Times Book Review, which has a history of belatedly recognizing conservative bestsellers, has banished conservative legal author David Limbaugh’s latest, Jesus on Trial, from its upcoming best seller list despite having sales better than 17 other books on the list.

According to publishing sources, Limbaugh’s probe into the accuracy of the Bible sold 9,660 in its first week out, according to Nielsen BookScan. That should have made it No. 4 on the NYT print hardcover sales list.

Instead, Henry Kissinger’s World Order, praised by Hillary Clinton in the Washington Post, is No. 4 despite weekly sales of 6,607….

The September 28 list of the top 20 print hardcover best sellers includes one book that sold just 1,570 copies.

Limbaugh, published by Regnery, has been a New York Times best seller, so the newspaper should have been looking out for his high sales numbers. And as a hint, they could have looked at Amazon, where Limbaugh’s Jesus hit No. 1 recently. On Thursday, it ranked No. 6 in books sold on Amazon.

Note first that Mr. Scalzi’s LOCK IN is presently ranked #3,566 on Amazon and did not make the September 28th list. The #20 book to which the Examiner presumably refers is I AM MALALA which is presently ranked #992 on Amazon. Keep in mind that there are two different lists and that non-fiction usually sells more than fiction.

The New York Times bestseller list is simply not what it claims to be. It’s mostly a marketing device manipulated by media ideologues and marketing departments. Some books make it legitimately. Others don’t. Fortunately, Amazon gives us a means of distinguishing between the two.

Anti-distributionist racism

Gawker explains the correct way to respond to getting mugged by today’s vibrant youth is not to “have the kid arrested for stealing your phone”:

Now, granted, it’s not entirely Clara Vondrich’s fault that this 13-year-old boy was arrested by police for stealing her phone. But, she did, by her own admission, willingly cause the commotion that led up to police being summoned, and she did—as the photos show—keep the kid pinned to a car until police arrived despite already knowing that he didn’t posses her phone.

Vondrich says that she “felt sorry” for the kid, but not enough to not have him arrested and charged with grand larceny. The boy will now enter New York’s vaunted juvenile justice system, which will likely fuck up his life even further, simply because he snatched a white lady’s iPhone in Williamsburg.

If you are nonviolently mugged by a child, continue to let him run along with his friends. The world will be a better place.

There is literally no depth to which the Social Justice Warriors of the world will not descend in their interminable efforts to reduce Western civilization to barbarism. When theft is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.

I was a little surprised by what the picture represented, though. When I see a middle-aged white woman posing for a picture with her arms around a thuggish young African, I tend to assume it is a family portrait of a celebrity with her adopted child-substitute. I thought it was Sigourney Weaver.