I Don’t Know What This Means

I knew about the secret Flight of the Conchords gig at Aro Video, but instead I went to work.
Does this mean I am square, because I went to work instead of ditchin’ to go see the dudes? Or does it mean that I am hip, because making an effort to see Bret and Jemaine is something uncool mainstreamers do because they didn’t know them back in the day?
Or does it just mean that Bret is hotter than Jemaine? Or that Jemaine is hotter than Bret? Or that it really is just too close to call?
(“We headlined for Video Ezy back in the day,” Clement said in his trademark flat monotone.
They both then pointed out where people could find different genre movies.)

[mediawatch] Newspapers: Epic Fail?

Ben sent me this link: Farewell Remarks from the editor of the LA Times. It’s a NYT pub of the departing speech by ousted LA Times ed James O’Shea. It goes into overdrive on page two:

This company, indeed, this industry, must invest more in solid, relevant journalism… We must build on our core strength, which is good, accurate reporting, the backbone of solid journalism, the public service that helps people make the right decisions about their increasingly complex lives. We must tell people what they want to know and — even more important — what they might not want to know, about war, politics, economics, schools, corruption and the thoughts and deeds of those who lead us. We need to tell readers more about Barack Obama and less about Britney Spears. We must give a voice to those who can’t afford a megaphone. And we must become more than a marketing slogan.

It’s a good piece, from someone who can speak of the newspaper crisis with some authority. Newspapers all over the world are facing trouble as readers evaporate under the internet sun, and O’Shea acknowledges this as a real and difficult phenomenon.
I don’t know that this message goes far enough, though. American (and global) newspaper journalism has declined for a number of reasons, and not all of them are summed up by “misplaced news priorities in newspaper management”. Another relevant link, this time via Making Light: What’s really wrong with newspapers, has more on this, identifying six key problems that got US paper news to its current unhealthy state.
For the record, the six problems are (1) The creation of monopoly markets and cartels of newspaper ownership. (2) Consolidation of newspapers into large, publicly held companies. (3) Reduced investment in journalism. (4) Emergence of a conformist agenda. (5) Collapse of leadership. (6) Advertising model proved unsustainable.

Feb 10: Anon vs Lron

One of the more fascinating things going on webwards right now is the Anonymous vs. Scientology war. In a nutshell: anonymous hacker network wages PR and tech war on Church of Scientology. Their infoclearinghouse is at Xenu.net, you’re one-stop shop for creepy truths about scientology.
The opening salvo was a massive denial-of-service attack on Scientology servers (where you overload them with fake traffic so they can’t handle legit traffic), and the next big moment was today, Feb 10, a global day of in-person action outside Scientology offices.
Project Chanology has the scoop. Very small demos happened at Christchurch and Auckland, according to this page; other parts of the world are still waiting for the designated time to arrive as I write.
This is fascinating on lots of levels. One of them that appeals to me is how the Anonymous collective is perhaps the only organisation really capable of attacking Scientology. The Church of Scientology has some scary-smart people running its operations, and they are very skilled at making end-runs around legal systems and outmaneuvering attacks that come through normal channels. Some countries have had successes but it’s just plain hard to go for the throat – the Church of Scientology people have a long track record of very intimidating responses to unfriendly coverage by journalists, in particular.
Anonymous, however, isn’t reachable by any of the means the CoS can usually deploy. It isn’t a real organisation; it really is just a really big network of anonymous geek dudes. And that’s anonymous to each other as well – there are no real identities in play here. It is a group with no hierarchy, no structure, no social links, no membership. It is almost an anti-group.
The flipside of this, of course, is that Anonymous is so loose and amorphous that it’s hard for it to turn itself to real action. The Feb 10 demos are a case in point. In less than 24 hours it’ll be apparent whether Anon is a real force or just a worthy attempt; either way, there are big signs of the future to be read in what happens.
I hope Anon pulls it off, though I doubt they’ll manage much. Scientology is very, very screwed up and anything that starts hammering away at that is fine by me. (Also, Tom Cruise is gay, and his attempts to change his orientation led him to Scientology where he has convinced himself he is in fact straight. Doesn’t that explain pretty much everything about that guy?)
EDIT: pics are up from Sydney
EDIT 2: Account of London demo. Five hundred people? Whitechapel’s discussion thread is all worth a look actually.

After Waitangi Day

It was a quiet Waitangi Day this year, compared to the last few. Opposition leader John Key continued his successful programme of getting about the place being likable. Fearless Leader Auntie Helen steered clear without earning the nation’s ridicule, presumable because we all remember the nasty reception she’s had in the past.
No-one climbed any trees or threw any mud or anything. How restrained.
There was, of course, this:

For the furriners, that’s National’s Prime Ministerial hopeful John Key on the right, and he’s greeting his alleged would-be assassin Tame Iti, on the left. That terror raids story just gets stranger and stranger as the months go on.

After Super Duper Tuesday

Well, that didn’t really clear anything up, did it?
Which is fine. I think it’s extremely healthy for the US Democratic nomination to be a long-running down-to-the-wire battle between two candidates who represent similar policy sets but very different visions, and (crucially) neither of whom are white guys. Not least because it provides extra impetus for sorting out their ridiculous electoral system, which is still a complete third-world shambles in every way you’d care to think about.
And on the other side of the fence, white guy with extra pro-war. However it shakes out it’ll be a fascinating election, and probably the nastiest election in decades as the Repub strategists go to town on triggering the latent sexism/racism (delete one) of the independent electorate.
(Props to Sonal for liveblogging the day. Hardcore.)

Linky, Although Not Friday

Some linky for your pleasure. This has been haywire year so far so pretend it’s lazy Friday at your work and check out the following:
From the Benny: a list of all the reasons why David Banner turned into the Incredible Hulk in the Hulk TV show. Man, this is one dude you seriously don’t want to spill hot coffee on. Or get stuck in traffic with. (Fortunately, it seems he doesn’t get too angry when you use prepositions to end sentences with.)
From Mr Warren Ellis: World of Meters, which has real-time updating statistics about the world. Most fascinating to me is “Miles Earth has traveled in space within our Solar System this year” – that number cranks up real quick. This big ol’ dirtball goes fast.
And from the world of YouTube, Alanis covers Rage Against The Machine “Guerilla Radio”

and finally that one Sarah Silverman song about Matt Damon that is all over the internets with good reason: