Dear Atlantic.com....

So I can't get to any actual stories on your site because I'm running an evil nasty ad blocker (so your pages load in a decent interval and I can actually find them under all the cruft).

Your page explains that you can "help" me whitelist your site so I'll see all of your wonderful ads, which you've worked hard to be sure are safe and reader-friendly. They weren't in the past--you were part of why I got the ad-blocker in the first place--and I can't help noticing that you don't say anything about them being annoying, intrusive, or disguised as editorial content (yes, I still remember your misbehavior in that regard).

Or, if "for any reason" I don't want ads (why wouldn't I? what's wrong with me? who doesn't love ads?) I can cough up approximately the cost of subscribing to the dead-tree version of your magazine, only without getting the dead-tree version.

Did I mention why I hit your site? You consistently produce reasonably accurate, guaranteed non-imflammatory articles that don't take much of a position on anything but do usually get the facts relatively straight. And I've been assigning 4 or 5 articles from your site every semester for one of my courses; that'd be the one with 120 to 150 students per semester.

I know math isn't your long suit, but try to work that out.

So, since you don't care to have me viewing your website, I guess I can stop doing that; you don't offer much that can't be found elsewhere (though I'll miss Coates' writing, but he also shows up in other places).

So enjoy your sanctimony, er, I mean sanctity, and purity, and how you've driven away people who use those nasty old ad-blockers, as you ride that shipwreck all the way to the bottom.

And why am I being so snarky about it? Because apparently you can't raise the money to keep the website going without being annoying (nobody likes a bully), but somehow you still have funds to send your writers off to a week-long junket in Aspen every year. So you'll pardon me if I'm not dripping with sympathy.

Dear Salon.com....

You win. You've made it clear that it's impossible to view your site without getting bombarded with ads for the "American Blackout" special tomorrow night. They must have paid a lot for that kind of marketing.

I hope it's enough to offset the readers you're losing.

I usually hit your site a couple of times a day. I'll be back next week.

My Personal Hero For Today

...is Rebecca Vitsmun of Moore, OK. Anyone who puts Wolf Blitzer on the spot, and graciously identifies herself as an atheist, at a time of great personal stress, is worth celebrating.

No, it is not necessary to thank the Lord, in order to be happy (and yes, grateful) that one's family is OK.

h/t: article at Salon

UPDATE: Roger Ebert is STILL Dead!

And it's the weekend, so it's time for Salon to recycle Roger Ebert's article.... because pageviews.

Roger Ebert, dead for months, still does not fear death

Shortly after his diagnosis, Roger Ebert wrote an essay for Salon.com entitled "I do not fear death." As essays go, it wasn't bad. Thought provoking. The comments thread degenerated into a bible-beater vs militant atheist snarkfest, but Ebert can't be blamed for that.

The week he died, the article was pulled back onto the front.

And the week after that.

And the week after that.

And about every two weeks since. It wasn't there yesterday, but it's back up today.

I get that it's a good essay... but why is it still being dragged to the front page months after he died? Salon's published better essays than this. They've published more important essays than this.

What demented click-whoring algorithm keeps dragging up this out of date essay? We may never know.

Great moments in proofreading

Salon.com edition.....

Slate.com as stalker

Slate.com has a social-media plugin thingy called MySlate. They really, really want you to use it. They put ads for it on every darn page. Sometimes when you're reading an article, a popup flies over from the side to try to get you to sign up for it.

This morning, I learned that clicking a link to read an article gets a full-page pop-up that blocks you completely because they just want you to know how incredibly amazingly awesome it is And of course, it's got the usual microscopically sized, barely-contrasting-color close button, so it keeps it right there on the screen in front of you as long as possible.

Apparently their theory is this: If they've ignored the other popups and closed them without following the links for the last 50 times, they're obviously just being coy, but if we bomb them enough with intrusive-enough ads for this thing they obviously don't want, they'll relent and give in. The behavior is exactly the same as an abusive stalking would-be lover.

Why do so many sites assume that readers have no other options, and that their precious 'content' is so amazingly unique that users will put up with any amount of harassment to get it? Dear Slate.com: If you annoy me enough, I won't give in; I just won't be back. You're dumping enough cookies on my computer already, a simple flag of "Hm, this guy's turned down joining our incredibly amazingly awesome crappy add-on 20 times already, maybe, just maybe, he's really not interested." Is that so hard?

Meanwhile....

Salon.com rolls out its own makeover.... and immediately becomes a leading contender for Slowest Loading Site On The Whole Damn Internet.

Further bulletins as events develop.

I know what I said yesterday, but...

Slate.com continues its push to drive away readers and push itself [farther] into irrelevancy with a hideous makeover of the homepage. Butt-ugly, badly organized, loaded with twitterish fluff and "here's what your neighbors are reading" pap, it's becoming an example of everything that's wrong with online culture.

No, I'm not a fan.

I understand they're struggling, and have to keep changing and adapting if they're going to survive. This isn't a "they've changed it, argh, change bad" post, but the changes they've made are a major step backwards in the usefulness and interest of the site.

So, they've made a decision about their market, and I'm not really part of it. Fair enough. Good luck, guys... I'll check in occasionally, but probably not as often.

Yes, Laura, It Matters

Laura Miller has a rather disturbing article over at Salon arguing that people criticizing Greg Mortenson for, um, allegedly making up large portions of a so-called memoir are missing the point:

Comparisons to fabricating memoirists like James Frey are misguided. An artful account of the memoirist's own experiences is all that the memoir has to offer its readers; if it doesn't approximate the truth (at the very least as the author saw it), then it's in bad faith.

But what "Three Cups of Tea" provides is something else, a feeling of comradely motivation and a symbol of plucky American virtue in the person of Greg Mortenson. If he has to massage some facts into a better story in order to create sentimental enthusiasm for his cause, many of his fans are more than willing to give him that. Pointing out that a couple of these stories aren't true strikes them as self-serving nitpicking and pettifoggery that, above all, misses the big picture. "Greg is a man who has done more good for more people than anyone else I know," read one comment posted to an interview with Mortenson about the controversy at OutsideOnline. "Yes, he's fallible. But the work that CAI is doing literally transforms lives."

Got that? You see, an actual memoir should be based more-or-less on the truth, at least as someone remembers it, but Mortenson is writing feel-good stories that encourage you to give to charity and feel better about yourself, so it's all okay. If you think he should be telling more-or-less the truth instead of just making stuff up, you're missing the point because he's a nice person and that's all that matters.

I call bullshit.

For a start, he's not presenting it as "heartwarming stories that are loosely based on events that may or may not be entirely true." He's presenting it as a memoir, as the truth. As what happened. Except he's lying. Doesn't that matter, Laura?

She does point out that part of the controversy is that the charity he runs seems to have been used as his own personal ATM (quoting a source in her story). Yes, that probably is giving it some legs in the media. But saying "he's doing it to raise money for charity so all is forgiven" is part of the problem. Journalism is supposed to be about the truth, not about well-connected people raising money for pet causes under false pretenses.

But you see, the fact that we're making a big deal about the fact that he lied to raise money for a charity that mostly benefits him proves that he's the real victim here:

Yet another mismanaged charity is not an especially buzz-worthy subject. But we love to read about lying authors and negligent publishers and all the other ne'er-do-wells who are dragging our literary culture to hell in a hand basket. ... Lying makes for a fun story full of opportunities for righteous indignation, but cheating at a once-esteemed charity is just a bummer. And the best story always wins.

You see? Those meanies are just picking on him!

Ugh. The classic tribal mentality.

Quote of the day

America needs two viable, principled political parties--Democrats vs. Republicans. Not Democrats vs. the Stoopid Puppet Dittoheads.

--John A. Farrell, US News & World Report

Quote of the day

From a friend of mine, on Lady Gaga:

It is like someone put Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, and Yoko Ono in a blender and that is what poured out. I am not so sure that the end product got the best of any of the ingredients.

Headline of the day

[h/t: Political Carnival]

Dear Newsweek...

I have received your renewal reminder, and the deal you're offering me to renew my subscription certainly looks like a good deal. Much cheaper than the cover price. Just a reminder of why I've been a subscriber for so long!

Until, of course, I go to your website and notice that you're charging me more to renew than you're charging a new subscriber to sign up for the same length of time. How much more? About 20% more.

Odd that you charge loyal long-term customers more than new subscribers.

At any rate, I've decided to let my subscription run out. After a few weeks, if I miss having your magazine around, I'll re-subscribe and get the cheaper rate.

It seems an odd way of doing business to me. I don't demand to pay less than other subscribers, but I see no reason to charge renewing subscribers more. I guess I just don't understand the magazine business.

Of course, looking at your recent sales and financial figures, neither do you.

Culture & Politics

Andrew Sullivan linked to an interesting follow-up by Julian Sanchez on the politics of resentment. Sanchez is making the point that the resentment isn't a psychological diagnosis, and isn't necessarily a code for something else, that the internet has allowed previously marginalized groups to suddenly find each other and organize in a way they couldn't before. But I think the bit Sullivan excerpts isn't the most relevant point in the article; it's this one:

People have read racial undertones into the rallying cry “I want my country back!” and its cognates—probably because this is a strange way to present opposition to a policy agenda, however misguided you might find it. The instinct is right, but I think the conclusion is wrong: Race—and communism, as Tim Curry would remind us—is another red herring. What we’re seeing is the natural sentiment of people who think of themselves as quintessentially American looking at an American popular and public culture that presents them as marginal.

Yes. That's the biggest reason why so much of the politics of the right currently involves resentment of so-called elites, exclusion by "the mainstream media" (um, hello, FOX gets higher ratings than CNN or MSNBC), and an insistence that "real Americans" agree with them--and by implication, anyone who doesn't, therefore isn't a real American.

I don't see things improving for at least another full election cycle. The GOP right is currently where the Democratic left was after Reagan shellacked them--dazed, confused, out of ideas, and not quite believing that the old truths aren't holding anymore. The craziness has to burn itself out, and the remainder has to grow up.

And the sooner, the better. Yes, I'm an unabashed lefty partisan, but a healthy democracy needs a healthy opposition party, and today's GOP isn't it. They've adopted the tactics of the old left--identity politics, a political catechism that must be accepted without question, a total unwillingness to consider any other view as being anything other than hopelessly corrupt--and charged it up on tribal identification, with a good healthy dose of religious fervor and nativism. And, like the old left, have become more concerned with all of the above than the realities of governing or of addressing the problems in front of us today, rather than the problems of 30 years ago. (1980's Democrats couldn't quite grasp the idea that the heyday of the civil rights movement and the Great Society were over; today's GOP wants to apply Regan's platform from 30 years ago to today's problems.)

But the GOP seems short of grown-ups at the moment; it's all tribal politics and red meat for the base. If it's got to burn out before it starts to change, then run, Sarah, run!

Edit/addendum: incredibly minor nit-pick. Tim Curry would remind us that it's socialism that's the red herring.

Tiger Woods & Celebrity Culture

I hadn't particularly followed or got too worked up about the Tiger Woods hype because we've seen so much of it before. Wealthy famous athlete apparently starts to believe his own "you can do anything" routine, steps out on his wife one or more times, scandal erupts when it's discovered, and everyone is shocked and appalled someone they'd made a hero turned out to be human.

(I'm not going to use the phrase role model because unless we're talking about how to fulfill the role of pro golfer, Tiger wasn't modeling any particular role... He's an extremely talented athlete, and paid endorser for several products. That doesn't mean he's actually an expert on razor blades or shaving technology, of course, just that he is paid to speak on behalf of Gillette products, and presumably uses the products he endorses. But there's no other role-modeling, or moral example, involved.)

Conor Friesdersdorf over at the Daily Dish has a thoughtful post up about what it all means and why the people screaming that Tiger gave up any claim to privacy when he stepped in front of a camera are wrong.

Let the man, and his family, have some space. If he's willing to take time off from golf, meaning he's giving up tournament income and putting his endorsement income at risk--Gillette has already cut him back--to deal with his family and the pain he's caused them, I certainly can't fault him. People freaking out about this need to take a deep breath. As Conor points out, he doesn't owe us anything beyond using the products he's endorsing. He's made some bad relationship choices, and things have come home to roost. He's taking time to deal with it, and doesn't want a media circus in the middle of it.

Good for him.

Least Surprising Headline of the Day Award

And today's award goes to CNN:

Image of the day

[h/t: GottaLaff]

Nazis

Why we need to tone down the rhetoric on health care. Because the memory of those who died at their hands shouldn't be cheapened by using the term to mean "someone I disagree with politically."

Go read.

[H/T: GottaLaff]

Mini-review: GI Joe and the Rise of Cobra

When one is watching a movie based on a cartoon series, and that cartoon series was designed to sell toys, one should keep expectations pretty low.

In this case, those low expectations weren't disappointed. It was, rather refreshingly, exactly what it claimed to be, no less and certainly no more.

Though the "weaponizing the warheads" sequence was particularly silly, even by the low standards of the movie-of-the-cartoon-of-the-commerical genre.

Though I'll give it this: Unlike the Transformers movie, it was always possible to tell who was fighting whom in the big finale. It's not much, but it's something.