Monday, February 28, 2005
Headline News
OK, I know the Daily Aneurysm has been more like a couple-times-a-week aneurysm for the last month or so. Fact is, I have lots of actual remunerative labor in my life at the moment, which leaves less time for this kind of gasbaggery. But it's also true that I have been deliberately weaning myself off the kind of steady news diet daily posting requires. The level of outrage stoked by even 15 minutes of regular morning blog-reading was growing toxic. I got tired of it, and I still am, so I don't know if I'll ever go back to the kind of posting levels I achieved in 2004. (The bulk of my blogging energy lately has been directed at The Hits Just Keep On Comin', actually.) But there's enough to talk about today that I think I can do it in small bites.
Headline: Hillary Clinton is the Democratic candidate to beat in 2008.
Comment: So much for the conventional wisdom that next to John Kerry, Hillary was the biggest loser in the 2004 election. The current Hillary boom is mostly name-recognition on the grossest scale--but it also ought give heartburn to those Democrats most interested in reforming the party along Deaniac lines. If Hillary gains the nomination, it will most likely be along lines laid out by the same centrist Democrats whose prescription for 2004 got our asses kicked. Yeah, they won in 1992--but that was 1992.
Headline: 115 dead in Iraqi suicide attack.
Comment: Well, the elections sure calmed everybody down over there, didn't they?
Headline: Michael Jackson trial begins.
Comment: The amount of oxygen this circus is going to suck out of the journalistic atmosphere this spring will be stupendous. The White House has to be smiling, considering all the cover it will give them for the rape of Social Security, the seeding of the judiciary with right-wing nutjobs, and planning for a war against Iran.
Headline: Million Dollar Baby sweeps the Oscars.
Comment: I saw exactly two movies in a theater in 2004--Cold Mountain and Fahrenheit 911. First of all, I hate the experience of going to the theater--uncomfortable seats, bad acoustics and picture quality (even in the newest theaters, I find), noisy fellow patrons, etc.--and second, there are often no more than three or four movies a year that remotely interest me. My best shot at seeing any of this year's best picture nominees is if The Mrs. rents them.
Headline: NYPD Blue ends its 11-year run tomorrow night.
Comment: ABC has really given the here's-your-hat, what's-your-hurry treatment to this series, letting it go with minimal fanfare, and using the limited promotional time it's given the series finale to spoil the concluding plotlines for dedicated viewers. But hardcore fans will be on hand for tomorrow night's adios with lots of fond memories. It looks as if creator Steven Bochco and company are going to resist the temptation to tie up too many storylines, just as they did with their first groundbreaking series, Hill Street Blues--instead, the police work will simply go on without our stopping by every week to watch it.
OK, I know the Daily Aneurysm has been more like a couple-times-a-week aneurysm for the last month or so. Fact is, I have lots of actual remunerative labor in my life at the moment, which leaves less time for this kind of gasbaggery. But it's also true that I have been deliberately weaning myself off the kind of steady news diet daily posting requires. The level of outrage stoked by even 15 minutes of regular morning blog-reading was growing toxic. I got tired of it, and I still am, so I don't know if I'll ever go back to the kind of posting levels I achieved in 2004. (The bulk of my blogging energy lately has been directed at The Hits Just Keep On Comin', actually.) But there's enough to talk about today that I think I can do it in small bites.
Headline: Hillary Clinton is the Democratic candidate to beat in 2008.
Comment: So much for the conventional wisdom that next to John Kerry, Hillary was the biggest loser in the 2004 election. The current Hillary boom is mostly name-recognition on the grossest scale--but it also ought give heartburn to those Democrats most interested in reforming the party along Deaniac lines. If Hillary gains the nomination, it will most likely be along lines laid out by the same centrist Democrats whose prescription for 2004 got our asses kicked. Yeah, they won in 1992--but that was 1992.
Headline: 115 dead in Iraqi suicide attack.
Comment: Well, the elections sure calmed everybody down over there, didn't they?
Headline: Michael Jackson trial begins.
Comment: The amount of oxygen this circus is going to suck out of the journalistic atmosphere this spring will be stupendous. The White House has to be smiling, considering all the cover it will give them for the rape of Social Security, the seeding of the judiciary with right-wing nutjobs, and planning for a war against Iran.
Headline: Million Dollar Baby sweeps the Oscars.
Comment: I saw exactly two movies in a theater in 2004--Cold Mountain and Fahrenheit 911. First of all, I hate the experience of going to the theater--uncomfortable seats, bad acoustics and picture quality (even in the newest theaters, I find), noisy fellow patrons, etc.--and second, there are often no more than three or four movies a year that remotely interest me. My best shot at seeing any of this year's best picture nominees is if The Mrs. rents them.
Headline: NYPD Blue ends its 11-year run tomorrow night.
Comment: ABC has really given the here's-your-hat, what's-your-hurry treatment to this series, letting it go with minimal fanfare, and using the limited promotional time it's given the series finale to spoil the concluding plotlines for dedicated viewers. But hardcore fans will be on hand for tomorrow night's adios with lots of fond memories. It looks as if creator Steven Bochco and company are going to resist the temptation to tie up too many storylines, just as they did with their first groundbreaking series, Hill Street Blues--instead, the police work will simply go on without our stopping by every week to watch it.
