Chicago Trip, October 2008

The Book of Revelations ...

... is such a great name for a blog. Too bad Saatchi & Saatchi got there first.

Morning Round-Up

Interesting story on CNN today about God-rocker Larry Norman and how many artists he’s influenced …

… and why is the DOJ all over Microsoft and Yahoo working together to help break Google’s growing monopoly on advertising?

… Bill Maher give the Pres an earful and has a point: Not all of us are race-baiting, self-absorbed Tea-baggers.

Derek Jeter

In a world full of infantile athletes who gamble, do steroids, cheat on their spouses, bring guns to nightclubs and accidentally shoot themselves, it's just nice to know that sometimes a gentleman with skill can claim the higher ground. Hats off to Mr. Jeter for entering the history books with class.

Andy Warhol is a scream, hang him on my wall ...

The SoCal Warhol thief will be famous for 15 minutes, that's all I got to say ...

And, no, there are no rules for the rich that differ than the rules for the rest of us. Ain't that right, Ms. Leibovitz?

Also, two of my favorite thinkers, Karen Armstrong and Richard Dawkins take on Man vs. God. Nice to see grown-ups attacking the issues with wisdom and patience.

Morning Round-up

Eight years ago, the world seemed like such an optimistic place. I guess a lot of us were pretty naive. To those we lost in the attacks, and the service men and women who we have lost or been wounded since that day, an old Irish blessing: "May the road rise with you and the wind be at your back and may God hold you always in the hollow of his hand."

... but, they promised to do no evil: Seems Google's enemies list regarding out-of-print book publishing rights grows larger by the day.

... oh, now they tell us: Former generals knock Cheney's love of torture and slam its efficacy.

... and the always entertainingly delusional Ralph Peters laments why we're losing the "War on Terror". It always gets me when "patriots" choose to gut the Constitution in the name of securing "Freedom".

Testing BlogJet

I have installed an interesting application - BlogJet. It's a cool Windows client for my blog tool (as well as for other tools). Get your copy here: http://blogjet.com

"Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination." -- Albert Einstein

Grilled pork roast with sautéed grape tomatoes and spinach

Mike Duvall for State Assembly ... revisited

Wow, that was quick: Mike Duvall, we hardly knew ya!

Oh Superman: Warners Bros' family ties to DC get stronger

Following swiftly on the heals of Disney's acquisition of Marvel, Warner Bros. folded DC Comics into its movie studio and renamed it DC Entertainment Inc. The whole synergy thing with DC's heroes and Warner's movie studio hasn't worked out too well in the past for the company.

While the reinvigorated Batman franchise looks to have one or two more movies still in it, the local Blockbuster is littered with the DVD corpses of comic book characters taken down by bad casting (2004's Cathwoman with Halle Berry) or just plain bad film making (2006's Superman Returns).


Marvel's done pretty well despite itself. Remember, for every Iron Man or Spiderman movie they've had, audiences have had to sit through Ang Lee's art house Hulk or the completely disposable Fantastic Four movies.

Marvel has some great characters, but it's kind of a unspoken truth that DC owns the big dogs, the true icons of comic book history's Golden Age: Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman.

Yet despite access to these legendary brands, Warner Bros.' success in putting them on the big screen has been hit and miss for more than three decades. However, on the animation side of things, Warner has done some amazing work with the weekly Batman: the Animated Series, Superman: the Animated Series, Batman Beyond and Justice League series which stretched from the early-90s to 2006.

Hopefully Diane Nelson, who will now head up the division, will go to the animation teams behind the series and see how the fabled DC stable of comic characters should be treated.

Journalism Online's Business Model Raises Eyebrows, But Will It Raise Money?

... Steve Brill's latest venture has released a business plan and it's interesting says the Neiman Journalism Lab:

"The basic pitch from Journalism Online involves news sites signing up 10 percent of their monthly visitors for some kind of subscription plan. (That figure has been floating between 5 and 15 percent.) But lots of content would remain free so news sites could continue to reap advertising revenue from non-paying visitors. Net profit, in Journalism Online’s models, emerges from subscription revenue, a slight increase in print circulation, and cost savings."

But as Google and the emerging e-reader and netbook markets expand, will this plan make sense and, more importantly, make money?

With the platforms -- the Kindle, iPhone (or the near-mythical iTablet) -- eliminating both the printer and the distributor, doesn't this open up the possibility that Amazon or Apple or Sony or Plastic Logic could become de facto publishers?

They say they want to help journalism, but few of the new application and technology developers appear to have the stomach to get in bed with the traditional media owners and publishers and create a new business model. Yet they cry foul when Google throws its weight around, re: publishing rights and its micro-payment plan for newspapers

Seems to me that for journalism to survive and for quality content to reclaim its true value on the Internet, the relationship between the content creators and the platform builders needs to change dramatically.

Morning Round-Up

... Google's micropayment plan could be a lifesaver for traditional newspapers and seems like a good idea, but I question the company's benevolence.

... maybe his mother didn't teach him better manners, still South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson apologized for his ignorant outburst during the Obama address to both houses of Congress.

... meanwhile conservative California state assemblyman Michael Duvall forgot that a true gentleman never kisses (or spanks) and tells, especially while the tape is rolling.

Salmon and Bacon

Not since chocolate and peanut butter or hot dogs and donuts has the combination of two unlikely foods brought so much pleasure to so many people.

The Internet is littered with recipes of salmon wrapped in bacon and while it's enough to give your cardiologist pause due to the contradictory nature of the combo, let's face facts, folks: Between farm-grown salmon dining on their own filth and mercury-tainted wild salmon, you just can't win health-wise, nowadays. So bring on the bacon, I say!

Still, though a huge fan of both protein products, I feel bacon-wrapped salmon has a tendency to overpower the flavor of the fish. I mean, if I wanted smoked salmon, I would have bought it.

No, I'm looking for smoky nuance ...

Here's the drill:

You will need one iron skillet, well seasoned. (I use a 40-plus year old family heirloom I snaked from my late grandmother back in the day, God bless her soul ...).

You can do this on the stove-top, but unless you have a killer venting fan, I would opt for an outdoor gas grill.

• Four nice fatty slices of smoked bacon
• 1.5 to 2-pound salmon fillet that is no more than 1.5 inches thick.
• Olive oil
• Black pepper and kosher or sea salt
  

Render down the bacon on the skillet. Do it slowly, you want maximum fat rendering and you don't want the meat from the bacon to breakaway and stick to the bottom of the pan. Keep it moving. When bacon is crisp, but not beef-jerky-like, remove from the pan for later use in a BLT. (NOTE: If I know I've planned a salmon dinner, I often have bacon for breakfast that morning. In Hollywood, this is called foreshadowing ...)

Next, add one to two tablespoons of olive oil to the bacon fat before you put skillet on the grill. Then, pull the top down and turn the mother up full blast for 5- to 8-minutes. You want it HOT.

The salmon fillet should have been taken out of the fridge awhile back and be at room temperature. Flip it flesh side down on a clean cutting board or other surface and season the skin with crushed black pepper and a little bit of crushed kosher or sea salt.

If you're doing it on the grill, check to see if the oil is smoking. You don't want it so hot your sending smoke signals to the next county, just a slight wispiness. Turn off the middle flame on the grill, the one directly beneath the skillet, and then lower the remaining flames to medium/low setting.

Now, using common sense, a long oven mitt and a long grilling spatula, place the salmon, skin-side down right in the center of the skillet. If it's at the right temperature, the salmon should start hissing immediately on contact. Close the grill's lid.

Depending on how you like your salmon cooked, I don't mind it a little rare in the middle, but the other half prefers it more on the medium side, let it cook for 8-to10-minutes. You do not need to be moving the salmon around on the skillet. The intense heat of the skillet will crisp the skin, while the convection heat from grill will evenly cook the flesh while keeping it moist.

Once, again, using common sense and proper protective tools, remove the salmon from the pan and place it on a serving tray or cutting board. Turn off the grill, too, while you're at it.

If done correctly you will have a wonderfully flaky, tender salmon fillet with a crisp, smoky skin that has a pleasing hint of the bacon flavor. Serve with wedges of lemon and/or a lemon dill sauce:

1 cup of sour cream
1/4 cup of mayo
1 tsp. dried dill weed
1 cup of coarsely grated, pared cucumber
Fresh lemon juice to taste (half a lemon to start, taste and add as you see fit)
Fresh ground pepper to taste

Personally I would pair this with a prosecco or a nice Vouvray that's got some grapefruit notes to it.

The Internet Manifesto

Germany's premiere bloggers toss down the gauntlet about the future of MSM in this somewhat thoughtful polemic about how the Internet has/will change media and specifically, journalism ...

Morning Round-Up

... Warner Bros. made peace with the Tolkien clan, giving the greenlight for the Peter Jackson-produced/Guillermo del Toro-directed two-movie adaptation of "The Hobbit". This inadvertently hilarious quote appeared in the WSJ story: "Warner Bros. President Alan Horn said in a statement Tuesday that the studio deeply values 'the contributions of the Tolkien novels to the success of our films.'" WTF?!?!

... disgraced former GOP congressman Mark Foley has landed a new gig as a radio talk show host in North Palm Beach, Florida. Will there be show tunes?

... On the heels of his film festival debut, Hugo Chavez tells the press that Venezuela will get nuke know-how from new best buddies Iran. That's just greeeaat ... !!

... And with the Celtic Tiger nothing more than a memory, echoes of the Troubles reverberate as a 600-pound bomb is found in Northern Ireland.

Go See "It Might Get Loud"

Just a great movie by, for and about guys who love guitars. Jimmy Page just rules the roost as The Edge's effects amplified punk minimalism and Jack White's garage interpretation of the Blues take a back seat to the master ...



The highlight for me was the three doing a rip-roaring version of In My Time of Dying. Just magical.

"Massive Global Wealth Destruction ..."

... if it wasn't a quote from the Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy filing last year, it would sound like something a supervillain would shout in a Bond movie. Bloomberg.com has a compelling piece on the company's last weeks ...

Investing in Death...

Wow, while the hysterics scream about fictional "death panels" created by the Left, Wall Street appears to have gone one better ... "Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance" ... now there is a class of investors who will profit from the insured dying prematurely if, say, their insurance company decides not to pay for a life-saving procedure or therapy. Brilliant, I say! Brilliant!

Van Jones: Much Ado About Nothing

The wacky Right has been having a wet dream about the inconsequential ramblings of a charismatic, but ultimately not very powerful pawn in the great Greening of America debate: Van Jones.

Andrew Breitbart and fellow traveler Glenn Reynolds have been screaming a conspiracy of silence in the dreaded MSM surrounding Jones and his resignation, and while Arianna Huffington took a lemons-to-lemonade approach to Jones' abdication (he's better off doing what he was doing then constrained by the Beltway), we should look at Jones for what he really is: a well-intentioned environmentalist, who while being a darling of the left, is really inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

It could be argued he showed poor judgment in signing a 9/11-government conspiracy petition, but while that may upset the faux-patriotic flag-wavers, there certainly is no crime in having a distrust of your government. In fact, since both Breitbart and Reynolds have made a career of inflaming gross distrust and skepticism over the government, you would think they'd have welcomed Jones with open arms ...

Why Hollywood Lefties Are Annoying ...

When Oliver Stone walks a red carpet in Venice with Hugo Chavez all the while El Presidente is silencing the media in his own country, well, you just have to wonder how far up his own ass Stone's head is ...

Remember, this is the guy who accused Bush of being part of a "conspiracy" after 9/11 ...

Hell Freezes Over ...

... as Jimmy Carters says in the Washington Post that Palestinian leaders might consider merging with Israel as one state ... meanwhile, on ABC's This Week, Newsweek's conservative thinker George Will agrees with The Nation's editor on the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Iraq ...

Morning Round-up

The NY Times reports that there are more than one million students without stable housing as of last spring. One can only surmise that the number has increased since then ...

Al Jazeera English reports that Yemen's internal war with Houthi fighters is nothing more than a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia ...

Earlier this week Arianna Huffington was on WNYC discussing her site the Huffington Post and the state of the Union. In the course of the interview, the host, Leonard Lopate questioned her commitment to quality journalism by her hiring of the 22-year-old son of David Axelrod to run the HuffPost's Colorado site. Huffington's response was that the Internet is basically a "young people's game" which I think should lead to charges of age discrimination at her company ... Anyway, TechCrunch's guest blogger Vivek Wadhwa punches a hole in the whole Generation Y obsession in a great piece on how 40-somethings bring more to the table when it comes to creating successful start-ups ...

And finally, a mature piece at The Daily Beast on why the Pres should NOT be addressing school children ...

Breakfast of champions ...

Pollenta with ricotta and strawberry preserves ...

Does the Internet Devalue Everything it Touches ... ?

Google's recent deal with America's Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers has left a bad taste in the mouths of the literary and publishing set in Europe ...

What the F#@$ Would Jesus Do?

The problem with politicians and commentators resorting to religion and quoting scripture is that it’s subjective and opportunist. Recently it was brought to my attention that Ed Schultz on MSNBC said that Jesus himself would support the public option. [Video]

Schultz makes a compelling argument, but what is fascinating is the point his guest, Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, makes regarding the use of scripture by both the Left and the Right: "There's this double standard," Perkins said. "When the conservative uses scripture, the media goes into convulsions saying they're trying to create a theocracy. When the liberals use scripture, they just report it I guess because they know they don't mean it."

“They don’t mean it.” Wow. This accusation is disingenuous at best. At its worst, Perkins is just promoting another Fundamentalist myth that you can’t be a Christian and a Liberal because … Well, I have no idea why they think one cancels out the other. I think part of it has to do with the perversely medieval form of Evangelical Christianity that has consumed the Right since the Jesus Freaks of the early-1970s moved out of the communes and into the mainstream.

Like a lot of what the Right is doing now – from Tea Parties to birthers and deathers – it’s hyperbolic fear-mongering; the creation of the untrustworthy “other” on our midst. Christianity, at least the virulent, race-baiting, Manifest Destiny-type that seems so popular these days, is part and parcel of the whole “Real American” criteria they’ve imposed.

While I understand Schultz’ argument, the government imposition of “good behavior through taxation” does have draconian undercurrents that even the most centrist Democrat or Republican should find discomfiting. Still, as a taxpayer, I’m not too keen on my taxes paying Xe Services (the multimillion-dollar mercenary outfit formally known as Blackwater) and other “contractors” to wage war on the U.S.’s behalf with little to no oversight or accountability. On the other hand, if someone took my taxes to help insure families in Newark, NJ or Appalachia living under the poverty line, well, I wouldn’t have too much of a problem.

And this goes to Schultz’ initial argument: What would Jesus do? I’m pretty sure he didn’t have the public option in mind when he performed the Sermon on the Mount, but he seemed to cover all the bases, re: mercy, compassion, dignity, etc., while he was testifyin’. Besides, as the man who raised Lazarus from the dead, seemingly on a good-hearted whim, why wouldn’t Jesus applaud equitable health care for all?

I’m just sayin’ …