Keeping up with everything that’s going on the world is impossible. As torrents of tweets and Facebook updates race across our monitors, magazines pile up on the coffee table and endless RSS feeds go ignored, it’s easy to feel like we’re missing so much — because we are. Sure, this is a dilemma that deserves the #FirstWorldProblems hashtag, but it’s still a bummer to know that insightful, witty and significant stories are slipping past us every second.
There’s already an overload of articles about information overload. That’s not what this column is about. This is simply a new column compiling some choice news nuggets culled from the previous week of Salon.
Without further ado...
“I don’t think the Bush administration would want to see these released”: In terms of historical significance, our biggest bombshell of the week was Jordan Michael Smith’s stunning analysis of CIA documents contradicting the Bush Administration’s official narrative of 9/11. These newly declassified memos reveal that the CIA had Bin Laden in its crosshairs and knew he was planning an attack on the U.S., but wasn’t able to capture or continue monitoring him because the Bush Administration refused to approve additional funding. The level of negligence Smith revealed is truly shocking — as is the dearth of mainstream coverage this story has gotten.
Faulty Reason-ing: Any time a libertarian pretends to care about poor people, you know something is fishy. Indeed, Reason TV tried to cloak its opposition to Washington DC’s successful bikesharing program behind a smokescreen of concern for low-income people of color, but our urban policy expert Will Doig deftly dismantled Reason’s arguments like a skilled mechanic stripping down an old 10-speed.
They deserved it: Both Joan Walsh and Alex Pareene also journalistically spanked right-wing media figures this week. Joan called out former bow-tie enthusiast and current Daily Caller editor Tucker Carlson for his chronic crybabyism while Alex dedicated his latest Hack List profile to the National Review’s Kathryn Lopez. Like Ned Stark, Alex’s justice was brutal, but fair: “She’s basically a hack liberal’s savage parody of a miserable, prematurely old religious conservative woman — a Jean Teasdale of the right.”
Great In-Seitz: Our newest staff reporter also seems to be our busiest. Since moving from Think Progress to Salon, Alex Seitz-Wald has been serving up scoops like an ice cream man. His morning news round-up columns are quickly becoming a must-read for national politics junkies. He’s also doing a great job exposing GOP efforts to keep the identities of “dark money” donors secret and loopholes being used to circumvent campaign finance laws.
What’s the matter with privatization? Alternet’s Bruce Wilson summed it up nicely with this example: “Thanks to a bill pushed through by governor Bobby Jindal, thousands of students in Louisiana will receive state voucher money, transferred from public school funding, to attend private religious schools, some of which teach from a Christian curriculum that suggests the Loch Ness Monster disproves evolution... the curriculum also claims that a Japanese fishing boat caught a dinosaur.” I rest my case.
Double, double oil and trouble: I know this is hard to believe, but you can’t trust Big Energy companies. David Sirota aptly destroyed two particularly harmful pillars of propaganda this week. First, he demonstrated the fallacies of a new smear campaign trying to blame home solar panels for higher energy rates. Then, he called out oil and natural gas companies on their bluff to move operations if states raise taxes with a simple bit of logic: You can’t outsource subterranean fossil fuel reserves. Unfortunately, many states have already caved to the pressure of keeping taxes low and subsidies high and it’s cost them billions.
O’Hehirlarious: Even if you’re not a movie buff, Andrew O’Hehir’s reviews are always a treat. What other critic would compare “Brave,” the new kiddie movie from Pixar, to a Quentin Tarantino bloodbath? “This is like the ‘Inglourious Basterds’ of feminism; all it took to bring down patriarchy in Scotland was one spunky redhead standing up to say no!”
Mary Elizabeth Williams quotes of the week: I can’t decide between "The ladies aren’t just there to give you boners." (In response to Bleacher Report’s sexist slideshow ranking female Olympians by “hotness.”) Or: “But was [Hilary] Duff cooking meth at a Klan rally? Was she driving around town with her baby strapped to the hood of her car?” (In response to the Internet freaking out about Hilary Duff smoking a cigarette). What’s your favorite MBW quote?
Don’t ask, don’t tell: About half the women on Twitter (and some men, too) gave Rebecca Traister the digital equivalent of a standing ovation for her response to The Atlantic cover story “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All.” Rebecca proved beyond a doubt that she deserved the Mirror Award she won last week with a balanced, elegant commentary on why the question is flawed and counter-productive: “The notion that female achievement should be measured by women’s ability to “have it all” recasts a righteous struggle for greater political, economic, social, sexual and political parity as a piggy and acquisitive project.”
Congratulations: Starting Monday, our senior political writer Steve Kornacki will be co-hosting a new show on MSNBC with Touré, Krystal Ball and SE Cupp. I couldn’t put it any better than our editor-in-chief Kerrry Lauerman: “We’re thrilled for him — there’s no nicer guy in the business.”
Finally: If you made it this far, you may also be interested to know that:
Noam Chomsky has a big heart; Willa Paskin used the terms “Sorkin-esque,” “Sorkinisms,” “Sorkinese,” and “Sorkinites” in her review of the new HBO drama “Newsroom;” and the for-profit college industry is really, really messed up (i.e. one job placement counselor compared to 1,700 recruiters).
One last thing: After seeing what happened to Bradley Manning, can you really blame Julian Assange for seeking asylum in Ecuador? I agree with Glenn Greenwald: Nope.
There’s already an overload of articles about information overload. That’s not what this column is about. This is simply a new column compiling some choice news nuggets culled from the previous week of Salon.
Without further ado...
“I don’t think the Bush administration would want to see these released”: In terms of historical significance, our biggest bombshell of the week was Jordan Michael Smith’s stunning analysis of CIA documents contradicting the Bush Administration’s official narrative of 9/11. These newly declassified memos reveal that the CIA had Bin Laden in its crosshairs and knew he was planning an attack on the U.S., but wasn’t able to capture or continue monitoring him because the Bush Administration refused to approve additional funding. The level of negligence Smith revealed is truly shocking — as is the dearth of mainstream coverage this story has gotten.
Faulty Reason-ing: Any time a libertarian pretends to care about poor people, you know something is fishy. Indeed, Reason TV tried to cloak its opposition to Washington DC’s successful bikesharing program behind a smokescreen of concern for low-income people of color, but our urban policy expert Will Doig deftly dismantled Reason’s arguments like a skilled mechanic stripping down an old 10-speed.
They deserved it: Both Joan Walsh and Alex Pareene also journalistically spanked right-wing media figures this week. Joan called out former bow-tie enthusiast and current Daily Caller editor Tucker Carlson for his chronic crybabyism while Alex dedicated his latest Hack List profile to the National Review’s Kathryn Lopez. Like Ned Stark, Alex’s justice was brutal, but fair: “She’s basically a hack liberal’s savage parody of a miserable, prematurely old religious conservative woman — a Jean Teasdale of the right.”
Great In-Seitz: Our newest staff reporter also seems to be our busiest. Since moving from Think Progress to Salon, Alex Seitz-Wald has been serving up scoops like an ice cream man. His morning news round-up columns are quickly becoming a must-read for national politics junkies. He’s also doing a great job exposing GOP efforts to keep the identities of “dark money” donors secret and loopholes being used to circumvent campaign finance laws.
The Radical Right: Andrew Koppelman reminded us of the ideological vision driving the Republicans’ efforts to have the Supreme Court strike down the Affordable Healthcare Act. Randy Barnett, the legal architect of anti-Obamacare strategy, "wants to privatize schools, prisons, courts, streets, parks & the police." Whatever happened to “compassionate conservatism”?
What’s the matter with privatization? Alternet’s Bruce Wilson summed it up nicely with this example: “Thanks to a bill pushed through by governor Bobby Jindal, thousands of students in Louisiana will receive state voucher money, transferred from public school funding, to attend private religious schools, some of which teach from a Christian curriculum that suggests the Loch Ness Monster disproves evolution... the curriculum also claims that a Japanese fishing boat caught a dinosaur.” I rest my case.
Double, double oil and trouble: I know this is hard to believe, but you can’t trust Big Energy companies. David Sirota aptly destroyed two particularly harmful pillars of propaganda this week. First, he demonstrated the fallacies of a new smear campaign trying to blame home solar panels for higher energy rates. Then, he called out oil and natural gas companies on their bluff to move operations if states raise taxes with a simple bit of logic: You can’t outsource subterranean fossil fuel reserves. Unfortunately, many states have already caved to the pressure of keeping taxes low and subsidies high and it’s cost them billions.
O’Hehirlarious: Even if you’re not a movie buff, Andrew O’Hehir’s reviews are always a treat. What other critic would compare “Brave,” the new kiddie movie from Pixar, to a Quentin Tarantino bloodbath? “This is like the ‘Inglourious Basterds’ of feminism; all it took to bring down patriarchy in Scotland was one spunky redhead standing up to say no!”
Mary Elizabeth Williams quotes of the week: I can’t decide between "The ladies aren’t just there to give you boners." (In response to Bleacher Report’s sexist slideshow ranking female Olympians by “hotness.”) Or: “But was [Hilary] Duff cooking meth at a Klan rally? Was she driving around town with her baby strapped to the hood of her car?” (In response to the Internet freaking out about Hilary Duff smoking a cigarette). What’s your favorite MBW quote?
Don’t ask, don’t tell: About half the women on Twitter (and some men, too) gave Rebecca Traister the digital equivalent of a standing ovation for her response to The Atlantic cover story “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All.” Rebecca proved beyond a doubt that she deserved the Mirror Award she won last week with a balanced, elegant commentary on why the question is flawed and counter-productive: “The notion that female achievement should be measured by women’s ability to “have it all” recasts a righteous struggle for greater political, economic, social, sexual and political parity as a piggy and acquisitive project.”
Congratulations: Starting Monday, our senior political writer Steve Kornacki will be co-hosting a new show on MSNBC with Touré, Krystal Ball and SE Cupp. I couldn’t put it any better than our editor-in-chief Kerrry Lauerman: “We’re thrilled for him — there’s no nicer guy in the business.”
Finally: If you made it this far, you may also be interested to know that:
Noam Chomsky has a big heart; Willa Paskin used the terms “Sorkin-esque,” “Sorkinisms,” “Sorkinese,” and “Sorkinites” in her review of the new HBO drama “Newsroom;” and the for-profit college industry is really, really messed up (i.e. one job placement counselor compared to 1,700 recruiters).
One last thing: After seeing what happened to Bradley Manning, can you really blame Julian Assange for seeking asylum in Ecuador? I agree with Glenn Greenwald: Nope.
jlsathre
Jacob Sugarman
Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
Awesome, then, can I ask you where the heck is the communication for and about Open? Seemingly there hasn't been any in quite awhile....
Anyways....
HI!!!
As for your synopsis, I liked it very much, and thank you.
{crickets chirping}
But seriously, Liam let me give you some advice from an older man. . .Make sure you get paid in advance.
Never sign ANYTHING that the Company hands you and says, IT'S JUST STANDARD BOILERPLATE CONTRACT.....eek!! ~:D
And then the radio responded! WOW! Thanks, Liam! Welcome to OS!