Media Criticism

Let Us Give Thanks

…that at least one major MSM publication, The Economist, seems to actually understand the blogosphere.

The erosion of the old media establishment probably does entail some shift to the right, if only because so many of the newer voices are more reliably pro-Republican than Mr Rather. But the new media are simply too anarchic and subversive for any single political faction to take control of them. There are plenty of leftish bloggers too: such people helped Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. And the most successful conservative bloggers are far from being party loyalists: look at the way in 2002 that they kept the heat on the Republicans’ then Senate leader, Trent Lott, for racist remarks that the New York Times originally buried. It is a safe bet that, if the current Bush administration goes the way of previous second-term administrations and becomes consumed by scandals, conservative bloggers will be in the forefront of the scandal-mongering.

Mr Rather’s passing does not mean that the liberal orthodoxy is about to give way to a new conservative one. It means that all orthodoxies are being chewed up by a voraciously unpredictable news media, which is surely all to the good.

General

Giving Thanks

Instapundit has a list of sites where you can support our troops, for whom we should be thankful not just today, but every day.

And here are a couple sites that you can go to to support our allies, the British troops. Given the current anti-war mood over there, they may not be getting as much support from home as ours are.

If anyone knows of any similar sites for the other members of the coalition, please let me know.

Popular Culture

Alexander The Fabulous

That’s what it sounds like Oliver Stone should have named his latest cinematic atrocity.

Stone gives himself much credit of “telling the truth” about Alexander’s bisexuality as if it’s some progressive badge of honor, but at the same time he can’t get away from the cruelest, least imaginative stereotyping: His Alexander, as expressed through the weepy histrionics of Colin Farrell, is more like a desperate housewife than a soldier. He’s always crying, his voice trembles, his eyes fill with tears.

Actually, he sounds like an early version of Bill Clinton. If he got the lip-biting thing down, he’d be ready to run for “Alexander The President.”

The movie apparently tells us a lot more about Oliver Stone than about Alexander:

The movie lacks any convincing ideas about Alexander. Stone advances but one, the notion that Alexander was an early multiculturalist, who wanted to “unify” the globe. He seems not to recognize this as a standard agitprop of the totalitarian mind-set, always repulsive, but more so here in a movie that glosses over the boy-king’s frequent massacres. Conquerors always want “unity,” Stalin a unity of Russia without kulaks, Hitler a Europe without Jews, Mao a China without deviationists and wreckers. All of these boys loved to wax lyrical about unity while they were breaking human eggs in the millions, and so it was with Alexander, who wanted world unity without Persians, Egyptians, Sumerians, Turks and Indians.

Read the whole thing. It’s Mark Steynian.

Space

A Private Trip Around The Moon?

Jim Oberg says that it’s possible. It’s certainly technically doable, and a cool idea. The big question, I think, is the market at the price that it’s doable for. As they point out, though, it’s certainly within the capability of many governments to do it, if they just want the prestige. I’m not sure that it could be justified scientifically. Unfortunately, the Soyuz capsule is too small to fit someone like this.

[Disclosure: I’ve done some consulting for Constellation Services in the past, and may in the future, but I was previously unaware of this.]

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!