Grape Nuts is the perfect cereal! (And, btw, no product placement fees asked or offered). They’ve just been cursed by bad advertising. Remeber “tastes like wild hickory nuts”. Euelll Gibbons! Whoever ate wild hickory nuts? Sounds like it tastes like tree bark.

Yes, it’s a century old and has a ridiculous name, but it’s the best tasting dry cereal there is. I have to limit myself to a small box because I can go through one in a couple of days if I’m not careful. The secret ingredient: barley! Why won’t they advertise the taste of barley. No other cereal has it in quantities that register to the taste buds. it’s fearsomely but deliciously crunchy, doesn’t taste sugary, just toasty. It’s a century old and never been bettered.

Don’t give up Grape Nuts!

And then there’s Barbasol, the shave cream that doesn’t advertise at all as far as I can tell. I dont know who makes it, but the magic can says it’s distributed by some company in Dublin,Ohio. I used to use expensive shaving gels, like Aveeno, that promoted super smoothness and super sensitivity and super skin care, blah blah blah, You’d get maybe three shaves out of the deceptively tall can and then find yourself one morning with 20 minutes to get some place and nothing but sputtering from the empty can.

I swear when I say the Barbasol can is magic, it almost never seems to run out. I don’t knw how they do it, but it’s creamy and effective, smells great without being perfumey, smells like an old fashioned barber shop, and besides my father used it, it reminds me of my childhood when he’d shave before catching a commuter train. It’s like a link to him and my past, my shaving cream madeleine.

They don’t advertise as far as I know After many years of fancy over perfumed creams and gels I was re- united with Barbasol on one of those mornings when my expensive can of gel ran out and I ran out across the street to my local bodega which stocked only Barbasol. It’s one of those precious relics from a lost America where advertising, branding and promotion hasn’t trumped quality.

Support Barbasol and Grape Nuts, people!

And please send in suggestions for other such great non marketed, or poorly marketed brands that deserves support.

Of course it’s not just the media’s fault, as Sarlin’s piece points out; it’s media consumers–particularly tv viewers who skew what networks and cable cover– who feed on Jacko garbage, and Twitter airheads too, gobbling up bandwith vital to the opposition in Iran. Why not declare a Day Without Stupid Jacko Tweets. People are being murdered over there and all you care about is tweeting about “The Gloved One”?

The whole world is watching…”Billy Jean”.

Nothing could illustrate the triumph of the publicity-industrial-complex (a phrase I coined, by the way) over the fate of real people fighting for their freedom who will now be beaten, tortured and murdered with impunity, at least in part because the media took its collective eye off Iran to give us endless clips of the MJ freak show.

Would it have made a difference in Iran? Maybe not.The fascist theocrats would probably have triumphed anyway, but the impact of the opposition would have been greater, its future more hopeful. The spectacle of brutality might have hounded the regime like the photos of the police dogs did the racist cops of Bermingham, Alabama in the civil rights revolution. But we’ll never know.

I’m not a prudish opponent of “sensationalism”. But if the media can’t see that the events in Iran are genuinely sensational as opposed to fake sensational, that “Neda” is more important than “Billy Jean”, that they don’t necessarily have to be opposed choices, but in this case, by an accident of timing, they were– then….oh forget it.

The whole thing’s disgusting.

But I’ve let a day pass since his awful death before saying this: after the completely wonderful Jackson Five era, Michael Jackson was no longer a very interesting singer, not after he left the collaborative genius of the J-5. He became known for his dancing (wow, the moonwalk, really memorable!), for his stupid costumes (what was with the whole militaristic thing? And was the glove really all that interesting or distinctive in any way?), for one or two good songs (”Human Nature” or whatever it was officially called) and “Thriller” wasn’t one of them. Come on, do you really think that novelty concoction is worth another listen ever? (Okay I liked “Billy Jean” even though I still misremember the key lyric as “the chair is not my love”)

Then after the success of his solo comeback, fueled by nostalgia and moonwalking eccentricity, he became known for being a celebrity, famous for being famous, then famous for his eccentricities. Eccentricities that were at first harmless (Bubbles the chimp, etc.), then famous for being weird (”Neverland” the boy-pals), famous for his grotesque plastic surgeries, then famous for being an accused child-molester, acquitted of criminal charges but never able to quit the children. Then he became famous for his famous associations–buying the Beatles catalog and doing that hideously sappy “The Girl is Mine”* with Paul McCartney,”marrying” Lisa Marie Presley, etc. Famous for his famously annoying sisters. Famous for anointing himself “King of Pop” when he no longer could produce a decent pop song. And yet the idiot pop media went along with it, He was the King of Trainwreck Celebrity.

But as for his music? Can you name a single post-”Thriller” song he did?

Sorry. He and the Jackson Five created something magical. “I’ll Be There” is an immortal love song, sublimely beautiful in its simplicity. I’ll remember him with gratitude for that and the rest of the J-5 hits, and try to forget the trainwreck he became.

But in the “moronic inferno” (h/t Martin Amis) of the media “mourning” let’s not forget the real tragedy, that he long ago ceased being a talent and gave in to being a mere celebrity, the sure road to ruin.

*thanks for reader correction.

Yes, there are differences, some say Obama should have been spredier to condemn. I tend to think that he was being cautious, in not allowing the Iranian opposiition to be discredited internally and in the Muslim world as pawns of the U.S.

Maybe this caution was a misjudgement, I’m not sure anyone can say so with confidence. But right now the entire spectrum of usually warring ideologues–except for those who feel the need to be partisan over any other emotion–are on the same page.

It doesn’t mean that will accomplish anything, and it shouldn’t be a surprize that the jackbooted thugs of theocracy aren’t drawing a lot of support. But maybe we should savor small moments of unity, communion even.

Of course I’m sure i’ll get more deranged hatemail for suggesting this than for anything else, most of it I’ll wager from the ususal anonymous cowards hiding behind their screennames. But maybe not. Maybe they’ll take courage from the students of Terhan and boldly, oh so boldly, use their own names. I know you can do it guys! Taste the freedom that people fight and die for.

You would think that no one is delusive enough to travel across the country on the basis of a Craigslist come-on, but obviously too many already are. Doesn’t Craigslist have a responsiblity to warn to at least listthe kinds of come ons use by those facing felony charges arising from their website’s use? Because obviously some of these people are putting trust in the benevolence of the Craigslist “community” aren’t they?

Just asking.

As Gawker recently summarized the latest Craigslist news:

“Craigslist killer” Philip Markoff was arraigned on grand-jury charges that include first-degree murder, robbery and two counts of armed kidnapping. As if Craigslist users needed another reason to feel jumpy.

Queens woman allegedly rents same apartment to seven people via Craigslist (NY Post)
Woman reports buying fake tickets to Chesney (Fargo Inforum)
Two busted in Craigslist hooker scam (NY Daily News)
Nebraska Mom Attempts to Sell Her 18-Month-Old on Craigslist (AP)
Hawaii Craigslist Sex Ring Busted; Woman

But at least it’s free! And free is always an unmitigated good in your half baked “eco-system” right Jeff? (Jeff is very big on dignifying his simulacrum of futurism ideas with profound sounding words like “eco-system”). And the anonymity craigslist offers to the citizens and criminals always good, right Jeff–murderers , rapists and thieves all prefer it to using their real names in prepping for their onlinecrimes..

And so a free anonymous service must be doubly good and the fact that it punishes all the journalists you blame for not forseeing the popularity of the “sewer” you applaud, must make you triply happy.

I’m not suggesting censorship, by the way. I’m just wondering if it troubles your conscience at all. Or are you already working on your next suck-up book What Would Craigslist Do?

Or is your mind complex enough to handle irony, the irony that the free listings service that killed newspaers might have a downside to it? That the future isn’t always an unmitigated good just because it’s the future.

Maybe you’ve already lamented the murders and rapes and robberies on your favorite print-killling listings service, Jeff, and I just missed it. Maybe you’ve put some serious second thought into the matter and you just haven’t yet committed it to print, sorrry, the web. Will the Craigslist-related crimes be a featured part of the “new busines models” you’re going to be teaching the sadly you’vegullible j-school students at City University who pay to hear you bloviate? Or will you continue to shill for Craigslist?

How did you feel when you read about the woman who offered to sell baby clothes on Craig’s and then showed up at the house of a woman in her late pregnancy, killed her, carved her unborn child out of her to steal it for her own and was caught with the dead baby? Did it give you the same kind of feeling you get when a newspaper dies?

And please don’t tell me there was no connection between the online nature of the transaction that allowed anonymity or pseudonym-anonymity. You champions of anonymity on the web: do you fee proud about what one of your kind accomplished?

Please tell me you’re human enough to have some second thoughts about this eighth wonder of the world you so simplistically championed against print, Jeff. Then go back, if you still can, to dancing on the graves that Craigslist dug.

“The decisive margin of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in elections last week stunned many observers and angered his opponents’ supporters, who in the ensuing days took to the streets in protest by the hundreds of thousands.”

That’s right, with NO qualification–and no evidence, and no shame–CNN declares victory for Ahmadinejad by “a decisive margin” and makes it sound like the courageous people of Iran who are even now being murdered on the streets were just sore losers.

Hey, anyone awake there at CNN? Or was this a deliberate kow-tow to the Supreme Leader. Nobody knows what the “margin” was in the election, who won or how “decisive” it was. Or did you feel compelled to accept the fascist regime’s line that it was “divinely certified” in order to maintain your good relations with the murderers in power?

How about some editing: “The decisive margin of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory–a result announced by the dictatorship before a large portion of the ballots could have been counted–stunned many observers who raised doubts about its validity and angered opponents who took to the streets to demonstrate peacefully–where they are now being beaten and murdered by thugs from the fascist theocracy.”

I think CNN should issue a correction or live forever in the journalistic hall of shame.

I did something I hadn’ t done for a million years. I listened to Dylan’s first album Bob Dylan, from beginning to end. Thirteen songs, 12 or them negligable material–and one song, if not immortal than at least awe-inspiring, awesome. It’s the next the last song on the album, which makes it all the more surprizing since you have to put up with 11 ho-hum imersonations of blues singers, impersonaltions of other folkies, covers of old chesnuts.

And then there’s “Song to Woody”, so beautiful, pure, hypnotic, mesmerizing. You could play it all day long (which is what I did using the CD repeat function) and not get tired.

And I’m not even a big fan of Woody Guthrie. The melody Dylan took from him for this song (from some coal mining disaster lament) is just about the only Guthrie melody I’m really fond of and I can’t stand banjo playing, I’m almost allergic to it, and I associate it with Guthrie. . Why has no one remarked that Dylan has mercifully spared us the banjo for the most part in his work. Not enough has been written about that–nor about his killer harmonica work.

Anyway, as I was saying, 12 of the 13 songs on this first abum are just not memorable to me (I’ve always been a fan of electric Dylan anyway). No hint of genius.

But then in “Song to Woody” there’s Dylan no longer impersonating tired folkie riffs. He’s at last being himself, or impersonating hiself. You never know. this one next to last song, this one writen by Dylan himself this one called “Song to Woody” that suddenly soars, enters into your heart and soul with it’s beauty, it’s authencity,it’s generosity, its love. He had found his voice paying tribute to another voice, not disguising himself in another voice.

I bet you haven’t listened to it in years if ever. Check it out and tell me what you think.

Spare me any comments to the effect that I don’t know the difference between dissent and murder. I do. And I disapprove of the government making value judgments on political opinions on civil liberties grounds (the Homeland Security Dept’s report). And don’t try to saddle me with cries committed by Leftists. I’m an anti-Marist liberal. I don’t engage in subliterate hate-speech the way so many anonymous commenters here do. That’s the problem I’ve been trying to point out in several recent posts: anonyous comenters suffeing fro cyber disinhibition are creating a toxic and erhas dangerous culture that can whip themselves into lynchob frenzy and eventualy…who knows.

The problem is that judging from the comments here, we have already got to a point where there is very little dissent–in the sense of reasoned political arguments–but a vast torrent of vicious abuse and insult, sputtering, mostly anonymous, abuse that is the substitute those without an ability to reason articulately use. And a culture of verbal violence can create the conditions for non verbal violence.

Your hatred for Obama–he can do nothing right, he is a man with evil designs–is nothing short of patholgical

And one without much of sense of humor. Tell me do you really get off on the “joke” of caling Obama “The One”, or “Nobama” still. any of you? Witty! Infantile name-calling such a sohisticated form of political discourse.

For a good majority of the commenters, for “coment thread conservatives” as Peggy Noonan called them, there is only one side, they can only hold one idea in their head at a time, it seems. Obama bad! Everything he does bad. A sohisticated argument which is advanced by labored witless attempts to make fun of Barack Obama for everything from his name to his race.

While I was one of the first to denounce Bush Derangement Syndrome on the Left, Obama Deragement Syndrome has gotten more extreme, often verbally violent and thuggish. I see this in the comments to any favorable mention of the President, especialy from the legion of cowardly anonyous absuers among the commenters, most of whom I suspect can’t stand the fact Obama is manifestly smarter than they are.

Fitzgerald once said the sign of a first rate intellect was the ability to hold two conflicting ideas in it at the same time. Obama Derangement Syndrome types not only have second or third rate minds by this definition, they are consumed by irrational hatred unable to conceive of the possibility that they can disagree with his politics without spewing hatred for his person.

It is the personal nature of the hatred whih is troubling. Obama Derangement Types are getting more and more verbally violent, they are creating a culture which has the potential to encourage some disorderly minds to go beyond verbal violence, alas. For them, clearly not well read in history, Obama has become not just a Presdient from the other party, duly elected by the people, however much they disagee or voted otherwise. No, he is some malign spirit, the devil incarnate, they are no longer intellectually able, if they ever were, to make a political argument. It’s just hate, hate, hate, insult, insult and more hate. Check it out, you few rational opponents of Obama who post here. Do you really want to be associated with the ugly thuggish verbal violence of Obama haters? One day you’ll turn on the television and regret you didn’t speak out for reason and moderation.