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November 18, 2004

Bloggers Rumored to Be Selected as Time's "Persons of the Year"

I call the idea hooey, myself. And on that score, A Small Victory seems to agree.

I actually think a decent case could be made. Blogging is of course not the most important story of the year (although it's probably are the most important meta-media story of the year).

But since Time magazine won't give the nod to George W. Bush, they need someone else to give it to, right? It would be a deft, if transparent, PR move on Time's part, I guess. Bloggers would get off Time's case for a least a month or so.

Then again, who reads Time any more anyway?

The Politboro Diktat takes on Michele's case point-by-point and concludes it's a pretty swell idea. He compares blogging to the PC, which was made "Man of the Year" in 1982-- when the home PC had almost no visibility or impact in society yet, but would of course explode within a decade.

One problem I have with the Comrade's analysis: no mention whatsoever on the implications of any of this on that crazy blog-money I've heard so much about. It's a real oversight on his part.

On Second Thought Update: Maybe I don't want Time to do a cover on bloggers, anyway. Senator Philabuster predicts -- with almost guaranteed precision-- that it just means more crazy blog-money for the Daily Kos and Wonkette:

The cover will feature Kos, Wonkette!!!!, Sully, and Oliver Willis (by himself on the fold out page, obviously).
Then within the body of the article Instapundit and Drudge will probably get a head nod, but only during the boxed "Talking Points Memo" interview with Josh Marshall where he trashes them.

So the lefty blogs get all the sweet attention and lucrative endorsement deals, and the blogs straddling the right side of the divide get the same acknowledgment from Time that they did from the recent NY Times article: diddly-squatt.

He's so right. So, Time, do us both a favor and let's not but say we did.

Unrelated Update: Michele posts a link to this long, and often very difficult, quiz on eighties pop culture. A quick once-over tells me I don't know more than 20% of these.

And when I say "us," I mean people besides me, because he's never heard of me. Still, he's almost sorta-kinda maybe heard of people that may have linked me at one time or another, so that's still pretty cool.

posted by Ace at 08:34 PM

Comments

Thought I read somewhere Time is kind of "over" using nameless/faceless things as "people of the year" - I thought it was in the same article they were talking over nominating Bush. Then again, I could be 2-3 days behind the curve.

Whatever, Mt. St. Helens might have just blown up. And, if not, I like to start rumors.

Posted by: fat kid on November 18, 2004 08:39 PM

Oh there will be crazy blog money alright....

The cover will feature Kos, Wonkette!!!!, Sully, and Oliver Willis (by himself on the fold out page, obviously).

Then within the body of the article Instapundit and Drudge will probably get a head nod, but only during the boxed "Talking Points Memo" interview with Josh Marshall where he trashes them.

So the lefty blogs get all the sweet attention and lucrative endorsement deals, and the blogs straddling the right side of the divide get the same acknowledgment from Time that they did from the recent NY Times article: diddly-squatt.

But hey, who does read Time anymore? Ace, if you Rusty, Allah, our favorite commie, Michele, the Corner and Hugh Hewett want some true exposure I know some dudes at "Sky and Telescope" that would probably be interested in featuring you. Provided you were willing to plug that whole SETI@Home thing......

Posted by: senator philabuster on November 18, 2004 08:53 PM

Sorry, Fat Kid, you nearly got me to click on that awful link last time and you're not going to fool me again!

Posted by: See Dubya on November 18, 2004 08:59 PM

See Dubya,

He got me too and now I can't sleep at nights. I make my wife turn on the light and check the tub before I will go into the bathroom.

Posted by: BrewFan on November 18, 2004 09:09 PM

Time mag sends me press releases and 'scoops'. They seem to kind of 'get' the whole blog thing.

Posted by: Karol on November 18, 2004 10:18 PM

Ouch - that's actually a link to my blog, which then links to the web cam on mt. st. helens (NOT tubgirl) , though I can now see your concern.

I guess you guys missed my "no more dirty links on Ace's" - I'm a man of my word. Trust me on this one.

Promise.

Posted by: fat kid on November 18, 2004 10:31 PM

And yes, I know "trust me" is the cry of a guilty soul.

Posted by: fat kid on November 18, 2004 10:32 PM

Wait... Hitler was man of the year once. Obviously, they'll use this to prove that all the conservative bloggers are Hitler, and we should all ignore them and only trust MSM. Either that or the foil in my hat is leaking again.

Posted by: Schlega on November 19, 2004 12:26 AM

Schlega,

Close but no cigar in your analysis.

Since Time already featured Hitler thay will use that as their excuse not to feature BusHitler. After all, nothing bores readers more than redundancy.

/democratic underground.

Posted by: senator philabuster on November 19, 2004 12:31 AM

Two bits says Arafat wins Person of the Year.

Posted by: Justin on November 19, 2004 02:18 AM

I see what you mean about that 80's quiz.

I guess I must have been drunk during most of the 80's so I missed who "Turbo and Ozone" were.

Posted by: Superhawk on November 19, 2004 03:58 AM

MSM understands what kind of influence BLOGS had on this election (and I don't mean KOS). Our BLOGS exposed Rather and were instrumental in Republican grass roots efforts (whether intended or not). I would even argue they tipped the scale in our favor. The DEMS (Hillary) can't approach 2006 - 2008 without lefty BLOGS becoming an integral part of their efforts/strategy. This article (POY) will be used as an effort to bring BLOGS into the MSM/DNC sphere of influene.

Posted by: Winston on November 19, 2004 10:14 AM

The cover will feature Kos, Wonkette!!!!, Sully, ...and Oliver Willis (by himself on the fold out page, obviously).

Oh...my...God... I can see it now. Blogger porn. Wonkette and Oliver Wills in a nude centerfold spread in the middle of Time...

THE HORROR...

God forbid we should write about serious bloggers....or was that last oxymoronic?

Posted by: Cassandra on November 19, 2004 06:23 PM

I was at the Time luncheon this week at which they had their yearly panel debate regarding POY. Of course, it in no way dictates the editorial decision of Time, but the front-runner among the panelists (the panel consisted of Andrew Sullivan, Al Sharpton, Brian Williams, Coleen Rowley, and a New York Times TV Critic) was Karl Rove. Williams and Sharpton got an argument over whether it should be Bush or Rove with Williams saying the president not his operative should be tapped. Bloggers were brought up by an audience member but it didn't seem to get a GREAT deal of play.

Posted by: ken on November 19, 2004 06:42 PM

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Top Headlines

TJM definitively ranks the films of Alfred Hitchcock

@KFILE 21m

Politico is reporting that multiple people have abruptly resigned from Eric Swalwell's gubernatorial campaign: "Members of senior leadership have departed the campaign, including Courtni Pugh, a strategic adviser who served as Swalwell's top liaison to organized labor groups."

So the campaign is collapsing due to the truth of the sexual harassment allegations.
That hissing sound you hear is the air going out of the Swalwell campaign. UPDATE: No it wasn't, it was just Swalwell one-cheek-sneaking out a fart on camera
Eric Swalwell more like Eric Farewell amirite
thanks to weft-cut loop.

This is the dumbest AI bullslop I've seen in a while: the CIA can use "quantum magnetometry" to track an individual man's heartbeat from twelve miles away
I wouldn't click on it, it's not interesting, it's just stupid clickslop. I just want to share my annoyance with you.

Oil prices plunge on bizarre realization that Eric Swalwell may actually be straight. A rapey molester, allegedly, but a straight one.

Artemis II Crew releases clearest images of the Far Side yet recorded

Classic Rock Mystery Click
This is super-obscure and I only barely remember it. Given that, I'll give you the hint that it's by the Red Rocker.
And I guess you think you've got it made
Oh, but then, you never were afraid
Of anything that you've left behind
Oh, but it's alright with me now
'Cause I'll get back up somehow
And with a little luck, yes, I'm bound to win
Now twenty people will tell me it's not obscure, it was huge in their hometown and played at their prom. That's how it usually goes. When I linked Donnie Iris's "Love is Like a Rock," everyone said they knew that one and that his other song (which I didn't know at all) Ah Leah! was huge in their area.

Sarah Longwell spotting

Tuq'r's makeover is 100!

Alfred Hitchcock learns to talk with TJM

Ryan Long goes to the No Kings rally to pick up young liberal hotties and is greatly disappointed in the quality of the mish
thanks to stevey

You know we "joke" about the GOPe just "conserving" leftist things?
David French just posted:

Populists ask what conservativism has ever conserved?
Well its about to conserve birthright citizenship!
Posted by: 18-1

I couldn't hate this queen of the cuck-chair more if it paid seven figures and came with a corner office.

TJM definitively ranks the films of John Boorman.

Kid punks CNN chump by speaking truth to retard

Podcast: CBD and Sefton talk birthright citizenship, the 14th Amendment and SCOTUS, no boots in Iran, Artemis II and refocusing NASA, the NBA's hatred of everything non-woke, and more!

In more marketing for Project Hail Mary, scientists say they've found the biosigns indicating life growing on an alien planet. It's not proof, just signatures of chemicals that are produced by biological metabolism, and it could be nothing, but scientists think it's a strong sign that this planet is inhabited by something.

In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of scientists announced the detection of dimethyl sulfide (along with a similar detection of dimethyl disulfide) in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18b. This is actually the second detection of dimethyl sulfide made on this planet, following a tentative detection in 2023.
Tons of chemicals are detected in the atmospheres of celestial objects every day. But dimethyl sulfide is different, because on Earth, it's only produced by living organisms.
"It is a shock to the system," Nikku Madhusudhan, first author on the paper, told the New York Times. "We spent an enormous amount of time just trying to get rid of the signal."

He means they tried to prove the signal was caused by things other than dimethyl sulfide but they could not.

Artemis moon shot a go, scheduled for 6:24 Eastern time tonight
Great marketing arranged by Amazon to promote Project Hail Mary. Okay not really but it does work out that way.

TJM talks John Boorman, director of Excalibur

Good rickroll

What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV.
Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.

A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR.
Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too.
LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.