YM Ethicistist: Dope On The Table

I read Jason Calacanis and Fred Wilson because I am intrigued about the mechanisms of online business and I respect their thoughts on it, but that doesn't mean I always share their vision of fueling the Internet economy. There have been suggestions (from outside sources, of course) that Wikipedia should accept advertising to fund philanthropic causes: here and here.

Wrong road, people. Please obey the "do not enter" sign. I'm an ad-free blogger so my stance should come as no surprise but it's a personal choice. I claim no higher moral ground. It just feels more comfortable and natural this way. I dunno, some people have dollar signs in their DNA, I have jelly-filled doughnuts. But I take issue when I read a comment like this from "Tomo":

Grin and bear it or start your own news site or blog site or whatever site that doesn't sell advertising.

Well, some of us have and isn't that what Jimmy Wales did with Wikipedia in the first place? This particular conversation wasn't jump-started by people asking to remove ads from a site, it was the opposite. Grin and bear it as you say, or you are certainly welcome to start your own version of an ad-based Wikipedia-clone.

Look, the fact remains that some of us are opposed to blatant, reckless consumerism when possible AND we know it's ultimately a losing fight, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth fighting for. Sure, there are probably lots of examples where I am a hypocrite and I could be contributing in more meaningful ways, but that's life, we all possess varying degrees of inner conflict. No doubt I enjoy the fruits of a free market as much as the next person who is born within arm's reach of it, though I am also aware of what it does to those less fortunate under a tree without shade.

Personally, I believe the embracing and encouragement of advertising in many of these cases has a more negative impact than the charity dollars it produces. One is systemic and inflicts the wound, the other seeks to cover it up with a band-aid.

Lauer Proves He's Just As Much An Asshole As Limbaugh

I rarely, if ever, say something that isn't deep-fried in bubbling bullshit and insufferable sarcasm here, much less on a fuckin' Sunday, but this I cannot contain...

Jane Hamsher of firedoglake is absolutely right. This needs to go viral. Matt Lauer, fuck you. One million times. Gawker, Eat The Press, Fishbowl, Jossip - please punish this prick with extreme prejudice.

And while I'm in the nayborhood, Hugh "Like Sullivan, I am a sinner and in need of God's mercy and grace" Hewitt now has my permission to fuck a duck or two.

Subject: hi from aaron

Do you have some kids cluttering up your house or apartment? Then yell bells, take them to a family concert on Sunday at the 92nd Street Y! There are a limited number of free tix available, up to 2 adults and 4 children per household. To get them, send your info here and mention "Young Manhattanite" in the message.

And now, because I'll never have any offspring of my own, I'm gonna be one of those obnoxious people who doesn't think it's annoying to talk about nephews/nieces. Aaron, the blogging floor is yours. Watch out for wet spots.

i miss you. i love you.
uncle jj - i want give you a kiss
uncle andy - i hope you like star wars. daddy says check out http://www.videoparodies.com/yoda.htm
amelia favorite song is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBIY1brdfSI (the kink's do it again). i am serious.
bubbie - do like these songs?
mommy - daddy is te4achinjgt me to type..

The Bible Rewrite Project

And now back to The Bible Rewrite Project...

NOTE: Original Text appears in Italics. Rewrite follows in Plain Text.

Genesis 8

The Flood Ends

And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters were assuaged. The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. And the waters returned from off the earth continually, and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.

The Flood Ends

But Nate remembered Noah and all the wild animals and all the plants that were with him in the large boat. Then Nate made wind blow over the earth until the rain clouds blew away. The wells of water under the earth and the windows of the Heavens were shut. And it stopped raining. At the end of 150 days the water was less. And in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the large boat came to rest on Mount Ararat. The water kept on going down until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains could be seen.

And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. Also he sent forth a dove from him to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; but the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. Then he put forth his hand and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. And he stayed yet another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. And the dove came in to him in the evening, and lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. And he stayed yet another seven days and sent forth the dove, which returned not again unto him any more.

At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the large boat. Then he sent out a raven, and it flew here and there until the water was dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove, to see if the water was gone from the ground. But the dove found no place to set her foot, so she returned to him in the boat. The water was still over the earth. He waited another seven days, and sent the dove from the boat again. But again the dove found no place to nest, and she returned to the boat. Noah grew restless on the boat, so he thought of what he might do. Gathering a group of animals that float easily, like hippos and polar bears, Noah sewed them all together. He did this a little at a time as he walked on their backs from the ark. One by one he sewed them, walking on their backs, until he reached land. There, peeking from the water, he found a beautiful olive tree growing animal parts, the limbed fruit.

And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried. And God spoke unto Noah, saying, "Go forth from the ark, thou and thy wife, and thy sons and thy sons' wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee of all flesh, both of fowl and of cattle and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, that they may breed abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply upon the earth." And Noah went forth, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.

So Noah was forced to walk back to the ark. The water was still too high for the animals and plants to survive. Yet, in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and saw, the face of the ground was dry. The voice of Nate came and said, "Noah, go out of the boat, you and your wife and your sons and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing made of flesh that is with you, birds and animals, trees and plants. They will give birth and become many upon the earth." So Noah went out with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives. Every animal, every bird, every tree and plant, went out of the large boat by their families.

And Noah built an altar unto the LORD, and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the LORD smelled a sweet savor; and the LORD said in His heart, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."

After this, Noah made an offering of thanks to Nate. He found a tree that grew giraffe necks. He added four giraffe necks together to make a long giraffe pole. Then he sewed on frog legs to each side and his new animal hopped from end to end, toppling, but perfectly balanced. Noah gave this as a gift to Nate. Nate was pleased and He said to Himself, "I will never again curse the ground because of man. For the desire of man's heart is sinful from when he is young. I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done. While the earth lasts, sewing time, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not end."

Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers: Sit and Spin (Sincerely, Edelman PR)

I'm no fan of Wal-Mart. I can count the number of times I've been in one of their stores with a middle finger. In theory, I wouldn't have a problem with huge national retail chains since they should deliver the economic benefit of better operating efficiencies to provide lower costs to consumers. Cheaper copies of Zoolander and Zoloft can only make us a stronger nation. On the whole, I'm sure they also employ many more people than all of the smaller-scale outlets they've displaced, but here is exactly where they royally-farm fuck the system. Corporate greed has triumphed over the noble opportunity, nay, their social responsibility to provide all 1.3 million employees—enough to fill every major league baseball stadium if they ever decided to throw the world's biggest company night outing—with the kind of benefits that would never be available in thousands of unaffiliated, independent mom-and-pop shops.

Much more thorough, intelligent and coherent material on the subject can be found on consumer advocate sites like WalmartWatch.com where I found this interesting article and graphic from the Wall Street Journal on Wal-Mart's expansion plans. Gothamist, here's your map of the day.

That's just floor space square-footage, I figure if you throw in SUV parking-lotage it would fill in the rest, probably Williamsburg and Red Hook too.

Consumerist has done a great job of tracking the latest blown engine of Wal-Mart's PR machine, Edelman, which involved a buffalo-chipped and flackery-filled fake blog called Wal-Marting Across America. The strong swinging tire iron of tired irony here is that Edelman has tried to position itself at the cool kids table of the social media revolution with blogging and being transparent to consumers. Fortunately, dishonesty and hypocrisy are ferreted out with a quick identification of mouse-clickings in the Internet Age. If no one else has compared Edelman to Mark Foley, let me be the first.


Separated at Truth?

A) In the House of Representatives, Mark Foley was one of the foremost opponents of child pornography. Foley had served as chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. He introduced a bill in 2002 to outlaw web sites featuring sexually suggestive images of preteen children, saying that "these websites are nothing more than a fix for pedophiles."
Source: Wikipedia

B) In the out-house of public relations, Edelman was one of the foremost proponents of establishing honesty and transparency at all times. Edelman's Rick Murray serves on the Word of Mouth Marketing Association's Board of Directors. He co-chaired its ethics committee during the first year and helped introduce the WOMMA Code of Ethics. He says, "There's a right way and a wrong way to think about and approach the blogosphere, and public relations professionals who get it wrong will get burned – it's that simple."
Source: WOMMA

Related: Wal-Mart PR Guru Passes the Buck

UPDATE: This is why Jeff Jarvis is my blog hero. I imagine him singing the refrain "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" à la Rage Against the Machine. Hoot at the moon, people. Be the owl.

Dawn Eden and Michael Ruhlman star in... Virgins in the Kitchen!!

Flaming sex-not Dawn Eden does the 92YQ hot and heavy. Food author Michael Ruhlman contributes the 92Y Blog's first guest post. Watch out, HuffPo.

Urban to Midnight

Post-Japan Maccers emails from Dallas: "Hey randomly - some guy who took us out to dinner last night invited me to stay on his ranch next time I am in town. He has 3 real cowboys on it. He has like thousands of acres and runs a hedge fund. He said yeah you would love it. We can go out and hunt wild hogs."

Whoa whoa, nice shootin' Tex! Next time point that thing down when talking to a lady. Perhaps the hit/miss ratio is a little less favorable, but I have my own six-gun, six-pack, sixty-niner pick-up line: "You should stay the night and make huevos rancheros for me in the morning. My apartment has at least 3 real cockroaches and thousands of drug-resistant germs. You would love it. We can hunt for toilet paper. I run a blog for a non-profit."

My God, they are going to kill us all

A studied interpretation of the JFK assassination. Who said everything bad is good for you?

From YouTube user raiden1989:
I made this for a History Project and worked on it for at least 7 Days and my stupid A** teacher Mr. Brandon gave me a C+ on it. It isn't half bad for never using a capture card or movie maker and my movie maker kept crashing almost ever 5 minutes. Special Thanks to "Turtletron," without him.. none of this would be possible. He has mad Halo skillz to the 3rd degree.

The Bible Rewrite Project

And now back to The Bible Rewrite Project...

NOTE: Original Text appears in Italics. Rewrite follows in Plain Text.

Genesis 7

The Flood

And the LORD said unto Noah, "Come thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female; and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female, to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth." And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.

Then Nate said to Noah, "Go into the boat, you and all your family. For I have seen that you only are right and good at this time. Take with you seven of every clean animal of each sex, and one of each sex of the animals that are unclean. And gather seven of every kind of bird of the sky of each sex, to keep their kind alive over all the earth. In seven days, I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights. I will destroy from the land every living thing that I have made." So Noah did these things.

And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, there went in two by two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female as God had commanded Noah. And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, that same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

Noah was 600 years old when the flood of water came upon the earth. Soon, Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives all went into the large boat because the rain was coming. They each carried a plant or the sapling of a tree which would someday grow animal parts. Clean animals and animals that were unclean and birds and every thing that moved on the ground went into the large boat with Noah. They went two by two, male and female, just as Nate had told Noah. After seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth. In the year 600 of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, all the wells of water under the earth broke open. The windows of the heavens were opened. And the rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.

In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark--they, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two by two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life.

On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them, all went into the large boat. They took every kind of animal, and all the cattle, and everything that moved on the earth, every kind of bird, and the plants and trees. They went into the large boat with Noah, two of every living thing.

And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him; and the LORD shut him in.

Male and female of all animal and plant flesh went in as Nate had told Noah. Then Nate shut him in.

And the flood was forty days upon the earth, and the waters increased and bore up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth. And the waters prevailed and were increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail, and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl and of cattle and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, all that was on the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle, and the creeping things and the fowl of the heaven, and they were destroyed from the earth. And Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.

The flood came upon the earth for forty days. The water got deeper and raised up the large boat so that it was lifted above the earth. The water was very deep over the earth. And the boat floated on the top of the water. The water got higher and higher on the earth until all the high mountains were covered. The water went about four times taller than a man standing atop a mountain. All flesh that moved on the earth were destroyed--birds, cattle, wild animals, and every man. Every thing that had the breath of life and lived on dry land died. Nate destroyed every living thing upon the land, from man to animals, from things that moved upon the ground to birds of the sky. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah was left and the lucky ones who were with him in the ark. The water covered the earth for 150 days.

Shattered Glass Slippers

Hey cute drunk girl on the top left, wanna make out?

I don't know how I missed this but Jess Coen and Ana Marie Cox contributed "Girlfriend Getaway" stories to Budget Travel Online back in June. From J-Co's day one journal entry:

I've just arrived in Chicago and am at my friend's apartment. I fully intended to write this first post on the airplane, but my computer failed to boot up. Incredibly irritating. I had no choice but to read the latest Vanity Fair instead. There are worse fates.

Happy trails, pumpkin. Have fun at the ball, don't forget to tip your fairy godmother, bitch slap any nasty step-sisters and give Graydo my best.

Jessica & Ana Marie's Excellent Adventure [Gridskipper]

Spotted: And They All Die On the Table In the End [Upper East Side]

Reviews of Movies I Do Not Intend To See: The Departed

Martin Scorcese has a new movie out about crime. Jack Nicholson plays a grizzled person, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a fresh-faced idealist, Matt Damon plays a short person, Mark Wahlberg plays a more buffed short person. I'm pretty sure their characters are all licensed to carry a firearm. They may even use them, perhaps on each other. There will be a montage. There will be gratuitous use of 60s anthems. There will be a voicover. There will be cocaine. There will be moral ambiguities illustrating that cops and crooks are just two sides of the same coin. That coin will be a plug nickel. You will deposit said coin into one of those machines where you manipulate a crane in an attempt to snatch a plushy toy for your child. You will fail. You will then use this teachable moment to explain the unfairness of the world to your three-year old. He will nod sagely at your wisdom, then sock you in the nuts. Back to the movie. There will be character introductions. There will be varying degrees of success imitating a Bostonian accent. There will be talk of an Oscar, finally, for Scorcese.

Lunchtime...

Five Questions for Anthony Bourdain

Eater's Ben Leventhal and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain:

You famously taught us the restaurant rule of not ordering fish on Mondays. Does it still apply?

Fish on Monday? I eat it all the time--but at sushi bars--where the quality is apparent and at Le Bernardin or at any restaurant where they specialize in and have made their reputation on seafood (like Esca) and at restaurants where consistent quality is assured. So I guess I’d like to hedge on that rule. Where it remains a solid, sound ordering policy would be any low to mid range eatery where fish is not the focus. A West Village saloon with a fish special would NOT be a great place to order the skate. I’m not saying they’re going to poison you, I’m suggesting strongly that you wait for Tuesday.

Read more.

Miller's Appraisal

If the 92Y Blog employed sidebar testimonials like others do, this one would be near the top.

From Jonathan Miller, co-founder, principal, President and CEO of residential real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel (and resident graphologist at Curbed):

"BTW, the 92nd St Y blog is a pretty cool resource and well-written."

Mull-it Over with Alexa: Bias Upfront, Party in the Back

Fred Wilson, the AC/DC of VC bloggers (my highest compliment), I'll see your nifty Alexa tech-bias analysis and raise you an even more glaring Gawker Media-sized example. Let's look at Silicon Valley tech tweenster Valleywag and the hepcat of hubcap-lovin' car junkies Jalopnik which provide the benefit of publicly available sitemeters.

Valleywag


Jalopnik


So Jalopnik gets 3-5 times more traffic (beep beep!) than Valleywag, right? Now here's what that roadwhore Alexa has to say about the size of their junk in the trunk.



That's quite a throbbing blue vein in the backseat of Valleywagon while Jalopnik's flat redlining can't even bump-draft its way off the cement blocks. That Dodge don't hunt.

Server logs are the obvious answer as long as you're sticking to pageview count which is the primary measurement dictating the online ad market (unique visitor analyses, best derived from representative panel-based methodology, are more useful for drilling down to audience usage patterns that answer other questions) except not everyone makes their internal stats package public for open comparison. Until that day comes, Fred is absolutely right in saying to obey the yellow lights with all third-party traffic monitors.

Of course, if you have the balls to match your bearings, go ahead and talk trashly but carry a big sitemeter.

Related: Pageviews Are Obsolete [evhead]

92YQ: Carly Fiorina

With apologies to Northern Californians, I worked a "Sacramento is the new New York" reference into this.

Fear the Panter

Two more 92YQs:

Gary Panter - graphic artist legend, father of punk comics, best use of "red whorehouse umbrella"

Francesca Harper - Modo Fusion Lounge, she grooves with Broadway people

Chop Chop

I'll give you a little break from the Bible Rewrite this week. Here is a TV show I've made with a few friends. It is designed for public access. Hopefully for the Brooklyn January-March 2007 season. It will be a monthly show. Nick Zedd did the camera if that means anything to you.

92YQ: Peter Hyman

What difference does two years make?

October 4, 2004: Gothamist
October 5, 2006: 92Y Blog

That's Two B's, But Not Right Next To Each Other

Did you read NYPress's Best of Manhattan issue? Me neither, but I was just alerted to this entry.

★ Best Blogger Fall-Out

Who knew you spelled schadenfreude O-X-F-E-L-D? After exactly a year copiloting Gawker.com's snarky keyboard with Jessica Coen—who's oft-preoccupied penning beauty fluff for Elle—Oxfeld's I'm-a-gay-Jew shtick grew as thin as matzah. Really, we know you're frightened of pink tacos. Did you have to remind us every third post? Then came the squabble, and e-mail kafuffle, with media nut-job Nikki Finke. None of this boded well for Oxfeld, whose one-year contract was running out right around the July 4th weekend. You know, the perfect time to dump unwanted stories—and deadweight employees. So one fine afternoon, right before fireworks exploded high above the sky, Oxfeld was kicked deep into the gutter. His wordy weapons were removed, rendering him as defenseless as caged veal. We'd call it a fall from grace, but how far can you really drop when you’re only sitting at a computer chair in your grimy, two-day-old boxer shorts, nursing a sweet hangover and perceived superiority?

Who knew you spelled kerfuffle F-U-C-K-Y-O-U-I-W-O-R-K-F-O-R-N-Y-M-A-G?

Boris the Spinner

I can't say enough about the good work that Ben Popken does over at Consumerist. His man-handling of Edelman PR suit Michael Krempasky who represents Walmart is truly inspired.

I have no doubt that Ben would cross one-hundred miles of hot desert sand in seeking an oasis of truth to quench his thirst for protecting consumer rights. Walk briskly, my man, and carry a lot of sunscreen.

Futurist John Naisbitt: Five Questions from Felix Salmon

Here's another Q&A idea that I'm implementing on the 92Y Blog: topic-expert bloggers (or a reasonable facsimile) submit questions for 92Y/Makor speakers. Wild. First up, Felix Salmon of RGE's Economonitor blog goes over the Great Wall of China with Megatrends author John Naisbitt.

Stay tuned for Eater's Ben Leventhal paired with Anthony Bourdain.

Please Pass the Potatoes and Charity Plate

It was just a joke that was only supposed to go this far but damn, no one came back over the top in nearly FIVE DAYS?? That's not how online auctions are supposed to work!

Well, the fine print says the offer is for a party of four. I hope I can bring the Oxfeld, the Feld, and the Holley Ghost.

Previously: You'll Never Eat Lunch In This Frank Gehry-designed Cafeteria Again

Cups and Rubbers

Source: Anne Arundel County Week in Review - Week of September 25, 2006
Related: Way to Women’s Wellness Foundation