Archive for July, 2005
Quite a Combo
Bikinis and museums? Unexpectedly hot in juxtaposition.
Famous on the Internet
Minus Kelvin, Creative Commons darling, is back in the mix at ccMixter with some new tracks and some hot hot heat. Check him out in the two-slot on the Mixter Favorites chart.
BEHOLD!
A team of engineers at the University of Liverpool has helped reproduce an ancient Iraqi harp … the Lyre of Ur. I don’t know why, but that just seems cool.
The Fine Art of the Lead
It’s been a while since I read a news article that really grabbed me. And I haven’t even gotten halfway through this NYT story yet; all I know is the lead is a killer:
When they rewind the video of the fight in the cage, all the blood will spray back into Gervis Fool Bull’s nose, all the screams will be sucked into the collective chest of the sweating crowd, and the fist will snap back toward the big truck driver from Iowa who threw it, a man with a mohawk haircut who grew up fighting his twin brother in the neighborhood junkyard.
Good lord! It’s so well-written!
Slow News Day
I just posted a looooong item on morph advancing the argument that the Internet has not (just) sped the news cycle up, it’s slowed it down considerably. I’d love to hear your thoughts, if any strike you. (Except for your comments on my use of the profoundly dubious phrase “hot breaking scoop.”)
VOLTRON!
Oh yes: There will be a Voltron movie. Even (especially?) if it’s bad, it will be good.
Noted: Pharrell Williams is doing the score!
Also noted: God I love that robot.
The Era of Slow News
It’s common knowledge that since the advent of 24-hour news networks, the cycle of news has sped up considerably. With the rise of the Internet, it’s gotten even faster. In this world of up-to-the-nanosecond news, we’ve learned, facts and context are thrown to the wind as our information train wreck speeds down the tracks.
Right?
Let’s play devil’s advocate.
My argument: The Internet is slowing the news cycle down. Way down. It’s so slow, it’s turning the clock backwards.
Just Egypt?
Is it just me, or was the news storm swirling around this weekend’s bombing in Egypt a good bit more humble than the one around the London bombings? Since I was out Friday night, I didn’t get the word until checking the papers Saturday morning. By that point, the news cycle was revolving around the fact that the terrorism-related death toll of the innocent in London had belatedly risen to 53.
I know terrorism-related deaths aren’t quite as alien to Egypt as they are to Great Britain, but shouldn’t news outlets strive for at least a pretense of parity in their coverage of each disaster?
I might also be completely wrong in my assessment of the relative play given to each story, but nothing in the Egypt coverage leads me to suspect the bombings there will still be getting front-page mentions in the national papers two-and-a-half weeks from now. Call me on this if it’s not so.
To be fair: The editors may just be accused of going where the readers are. First and only Metafilter thread on Egypt bombings: 37 comments. First of at least a dozen threads on the July 7 London bombings: 712 comments. There are probably many more British MeFites than Egyptian ones, but dang.
Sleepless in Sudan
Here’s a good blog by a “dazed and confused aid worker in Darfur.”