Things You Can't Do When You Don't Have a Video Camera

Among all of the crap posted on YouTube are a few gems. This one, in particular, makes me wish I had a video camera. It's also a good example of how you don't need a huge budget to make something worthwhile.

Leave VT Alone?

First came the media coverage of the tragedy at Virginia Tech. Now comes the media coverage of the media coverage. Did NBC glorify the shooter by distributing the disturbing pictures he sent the network? Is the media presence in Blacksburg too invasive? Definitely. But, all of the criticism is unlikely to make the media retreat. ABC reports sentiments like the one expressed in the picture at left are prevalent:

"The media frenzy at the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va., has spurred resentment among family and friends who continue to mourn for the victims of Monday's shooting.

Anti-media signs have been spotted around the campus as the relationship between the community and the media becomes increasingly strained."

Students have been handing out pamphlets reading:

"We, the students of Virginia Tech, are asserting ourselves. We are taking back our campus. All media, if they have any respect for Hokie Nation, will no longer attack our administration. They will no longer hound our students. Leave us to heal. Leave us to ourselves. Hokie Nation needs to be UNITED. Return our campus to us."

It is, of course, an impossible request. And as a member of the news media, it's very troubling to realize that an event so traumatic for VT and the nation is a boon for media corporations' bottom lines.

Where is Kim Jong Il?!

I was thrilled to see an update on Newsweek's challenge to readers to update the wardrobe of Kim Jong Il in the magazine this week. A blurb encouraged me to visit xtra.newsweek.com to see readers' "astonishing" submissions, and pictures of the Korean dictator dressed as Henry VIII and the Easter bunny got me all giddy. So, imagine my disappointment when I find that the link doesn't work! It just takes me to the original gallery. I, of course, smell a huge conspiracy and cover-up, probably because Newsweek's readers were so upset the last time. At the end of the link to the story on Newsweek's Web site, it says: "Editor's Note: This feature will be published at a later date." What is that about? I'm going to write my first letter to the editor over this abomination.

Cat and Borat: A Scatological Short Story

Sometimes, as people with pets are wont to do, I mention my cats. A question sometimes follows: "Oh, how many cats do you have?" It is with great glee and poker-straight face that I answer, "Seven." If I can hold my composure, I glare at my judging prey and say, "What? I live alone, OK? I take care of them. It's not like I'm living in cat shit." They then, a lá Borat victims, have to decide whether to be polite or ask me what the hell my problem is.

Funny, right? Well the joke's on me. For the record, I have two cats. One, this blog's namesake, is a little rascal named Inky. The other, his regal companion Nico. Inky has extra-long black hair, and well, sometimes when he does his business, it gets stuck in said hair. It's gross, I know. But don't assume you know. Don't assume you know until you've knocked on a neighbor's door - as I had to do the other day - to ask him to come outside and help you hold down your cat so you can take the kitchen scissors and give him a "butt cut."

Inky might turning in circles in the shelter by now if it weren't for his adorable, affectionate personality. Nico, on the other hand, has stayed out of trouble. Until, that is, a few nights ago when, asleep in bed, I thought I must be sitting by a babbling brook. Or perhaps it was drizzling outside. Or, maybe, Nico was peeing in one of my expensive, knee-high boots.

Now, when people ask me how many cats I have, I have a different response: "I used to have two, but I drowned them both in the river."


Note: This is a fictional story. I would never, ever hurt any of my dozen cats or get angry when I find their excrement in my shoes.

Inky goes to Neko

If you look over to your right, Inky Mountain purports to offer commentary not just on journalism, but on music, too. Unfortunately, I've had to skip a number of concerts lately, mostly because I get paid to be a journalist and not a music fan. So, while Sparklehorse and TV on the Radio played Denver, I was probably frowning at this very computer screen. But, I did toss responsibility to the curb last Thursday when I went to the Gothic Theatre to see Neko Case, the sultry, sassy alt-country singer with the glass voice. I'm sure, Inky Mountain reader, that you don't care about the set list, so suffice it so say that Case was wonderful, as usual. Although, I will say the acoustics were better when I saw her perform at the Boulder Theater last year, and the opening band was painful. My cohort said it sounded like 1950s Christmas music, and she was dead-on. Anyway, I thought I'd write something about music because that was my intention. Oh! I almost forgot about the solo guy in front of us in line who was a dead ringer for the skinny, nerdy guy in the movie Road Trip. He was bouncing up and down and kept asking us if we were as excited as he was. Also, he was wearing the concert T-shirt to the concert, which I'm told is totally uncool.

Stay tuned for more insightful concert reviews that make you feel like you were there...That was supposed to be sarcastic, but you never know because soon there will be a very special edition of Inky Mountain with the working title of "Inky Goes to F'n Amsterdam." There are plans to see Andrew Bird and Wilco, but I'm not sure how much I'll be able to report on the shows because, you know, I don't speak French.

R.I.P. April Fool's Day

I'd like to recognize April Fool's Day here at Inky Mountain because, well, you've just gotta love a day that sanctions acting like an asshole, right? But unfortunately it's Sunday morning, and by this time of the weekend my supply of wit has usually dwindled. Today is no exception - but not because I was out late kicking up my heels. No, last night I turned in fairly early after having watched the documentary Jesus Camp, and the reason I can't think of a good April Fool's Day joke to play on my loyal reader is that I've realized nothing is funny anymore. Really, if you haven't seen the film I hate to be the one to tell you, but if some of these people have their way, very soon little Christian soldiers are going to be fighting little Muslim soldiers in the streets while all the adults dance and writhe on the sidewalks screaming "martyr!" Oh, and P.S., you're going to hell.

So, as much as I hate to do it, I'll have to leave all the tomfoolery to people who didn't recently have their senses of humor ripped away by scenes of 8-year-olds crying hysterically and screaming about the devil.

Your Life Is Now Complete. You're Welcome.

OK, so normally when I post something on Inky Mountain, I try to offer some kind of commentary or insight (ha!), but this video really, truly deserves to stand on its own:

Dobson, ACLU Bond Over Bong Hits

According to the Pew Research Center:

"A recent Supreme Court case involving the free speech rights of students is producing some very unusual alliances. Christian conservative groups, such as the American Center for Law and Justice, the Christian Legal Society and the Alliance Defense Fund, are defending a student named Joseph Frederick who was punished by his high school principal for holding up a sign that read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus."

Sure, it's not often that groups like Focus on the Family land on the same side of a controversial issue as groups like the ACLU, but take a look at Focus' explanation of its position:

"Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said it’s important schools strike a proper balance between the students’ rights and school officials’ interests in a safe learning environment.

'While Christians generally support the right of schools to maintain discipline, there has been a disturbing trend in recent years of schools prohibiting only Christian speech while allowing other speech antithetical to Christian belief,' he said.

For example, in the case of Harper v. Poway Unified School District, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a school’s right to ban a student from wearing a T-shirt with a biblical reference to homosexuality. The school allowed a pro-homosexual message by other students."

So, if Focus leader James Dobson wants students to be able to bash gays in the name of Jesus, he has to suck it up and defend students who say Jesus was a pothead, or something like that. Hey, you know, maybe whoever wrote in the Bible that homosexuality was wrong was, like, high or something?

A Rumor Gone Awry

Edwards is dropping out!!! Oops, not so much... The blogosphere has been abuzz today with the Politico's goof this morning about John Edward's press conference announcement. While blogger Ben Smith has written a long apology and explanation about how he got it wrong, it's raised some questions about the trustworthiness and responsibility of bloggers - especially those who are widely read, such as the Politico (here at Inky Mountain I can be as irresponsible and full of shit as I please, although I'll try hard not to be).

A little background: The John Edwards campaign announced yesterday he and his wife Elizabeth would be holding a press conference today at noon with "an announcement about his campaign." Overnight, after word spread that Elizabeth, who has battled breast cancer, had visited a doctor that day, the little squirrels at their keyboards had determined that a) her cancer was back, b) it would require intensive treatment and c) Edwards was ending or pausing his campaign for the Democratic nomination.

The squirrels were wrong.

Forty-five minutes before the press conference began, Smith posted a story with this headline: "Edwards to Suspend Campaign." Within minutes the story had been picked up by other blogs. Then, after probably gulping with bug-eyed, semi-respectable blogger horror, he had to change it to this: "Edwards Campaign to Continue." Soon after, Smith posted his mea culpa, which in part read:

"Though I’ve spent the last several years at major newspapers – the New York Observer and the New York Daily News most recently – I’ve done much of my reporting on blogs, and have developed an instinct to let my readers know whatever I know, as soon as I know it. The medium typically allows you to refine and update a story as it changes – including saying, “Well, my original source had it wrong.”

But the scale of this story was simply too big to report that way, to share information with high but imperfect confidence – and without making that level of confidence crystal clear. I should have waited for a second source, or hedged the item much more fully. Or simply waited for the news conference like everybody else."

It's that last point that gets me. Was Edwards' announcement so incredibly important that we couldn't wait 45 minutes longer for the news? It's not like Smith was the only person to hear Edwards was dropping out. Even I awoke to an e-mail this morning (from a listserve) that said this: "Rumor says his wife may be very sick and under these conditions he cannot continue. Rumor says he will announce at noon tomorrow from chapel hill."

To Smith's credit, lots of times rumors that spread this quickly and widely are often true. But often they're not. And that's why you should never, ever believe anything you see or hear. Ever.

Just kidding. Hey Smith, when are those rumors about Cheney resigning going to come true?

P.S. I'd like to give a shout out to the editor of Wonkette, who seemed to know not to trust what the Politico thought it trusted it knew, and showed us how the pros report rumors:

BREAKING: Edwards To Suspend Campaign, Maybe, Possibly, Don't Rely On Us For Hard News For God's Sake

Apocalypse Averted!

Whew, Inky Mountain survived the switch to daylight savings time! I wasn't sure what would happen when I read headlines like these in the past few days:

"Time Change Stirs Y2K-Like Fears"

"Tech Crews Prepare for Y2K-Like Threat"

"Y2K Again? Daylight Time May Baffle Computers"

I don't know what I would have done if the media hadn't warned me. After all, we all know what happened on Y2K! OK, I know the sarcasm is a bit thick, but who is the editor writing the headline "Y2K Again?" Sooo, what you're saying is that nothing is going to happen? Most of these blatantly sensational articles go on to say that your computer's clock might have to be (OMG!) manually updated.

Over at Inky Mountain, my computer and cell phone updated themselves just fine. I had to change my clocks myself, and luckily I haven't had a traumatic brain injury lately and was able to handle it. I didn't bother changing the time on my circa-1980 VCR - it's been quaintly blinking "12:00" for about 20 years. (seriously, the thing weighs 30 pounds, but hell if I'm going to buy a new VCR to play old My So-Called Life episodes on VHS.) Anyway, despite the fact I own electronics as old as I am (I also have an original Nintendo), even I could have changed my computer's clock if it hadn't updated itself.

I know, I know. I shouldn't be so snide. There's still the possibility of an apocalypse in three weeks when daylight savings usually happens. I'll be curious to see what the headlines say in the days beforehand. I'd like to suggest:

"Y2K: It Really Could Maybe Happen This Time"

or maybe

"Y2K: How About Now?"

Super Fun Photo Gallery

This is a photo gallery assembled by myself and my digital newsroom classmates. My album is "San Francisco," which is a slideshow of pictures from my trip there last summer. The photos were taken by Theresa Crapanzano (the future Dr. Pink).



The gallery and slideshows are a bit small, but you can view a larger version here.

Newsweek Has Identity Crisis, Thinks It's Conan

Poor Newsweek! Its inboxes are overflowing with reader disdain after it challenged fashion designers to help North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il spruce up his look. Second-tier designers created Hipster Kim, as seen at left, as well as Respectable Kim, Sexy Kim, Classic Kim, Tourist Kim, and Yeah Baby Kim. The tourist version of Kim Jong Il has a rocket in his shorts (I cannot believe I just wrote that) and is decked out in a gut-baring "I got bombed in Pyongyang T-shirt." Yeah Baby Kim sports leopard-print underpants.

The original story contains these killer lines:

"If Kim Jong Il is losing his nukes, can his drab jumpsuit be far behind?"

"North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is a man whose outfit is as rigid as his regime."

Indeed. But for some reason, readers are upset, saying nuclear war is so not funny and Newsweek is not place for such nonsense:

"Next maybe we'll see: ‘Color your own nuclear sunset of the human race!’ Or, ‘Take one of our insurgent figures and drill him full of your own custom-patterned bullet holes.’ Somebody who runs this so-called ‘news magazine’ must be deeply, truly insane."

“During much of the 20th century, Hollywood and our media and press demonized Arabs. Look where it got us. Now Newsweek is demonizing Kim Jong Il per his fashion. Jeeez! Seems like something you'd see on MySpace. Surely Newsweek can do better.”

Oh, but it can do better! Because it didn't leave us disappointed that there's no Cross-Dressing Kim or Golfer Kim - you can download your own "Kim-plate" and dress him yourself. Then, you can e-mail your twisted creation to Newsweek and editors' faves will be posted in an online gallery! Isn't technology just awesome? Of course, after this kind of reader venom, it remains to be seen whether the gallery will ever grace our screens.

Only Google Trends Will Set You Free

I have, my friends, discovered a peephole into minds across the globe (and it's helped me procrastinate doing anything productive for the past hour or so). Oh, Google Trends! How have I lived without you?

Here's how it works: You enter the name of anything into the search bar, and it gives you a list of the top 10 cities or regions where people are searching for the same thing, which is calculated relative to the total searches from that area. Google Trends also has graphs of the popularity of the search over time. For instance, here are the top 10 places where people are searching for "hot women" (I'm not kidding):

1. Yemen
2. Syria
   
3. Oman
   
4. Lebanon
5. Malta
6. Qatar
7. Kuwait
8. Saudi Arabia
9. Iran
10. Egypt
    

I've also learned:

• The United States comes in third in the frequency of searches for "Iraq War." Number one is, appropriately, Iraq. Second place goes to, um, Bangladesh.
• The U.S. also places third in another search: "wardrobe malfunction." Americans don't even come close on this one; India blows us out of the water with its interest in the so-long-ago Jackson/Timberlake/FCC fiasco.
  
• South Africans are a lot more interested in Focus on the Family founder James Dobson than Americans are.
  
• Americans are (duh) obsessed with Anna Nicole Smith, but we sadly fail in taking the gold in the category. The most obsessed? Pakistanis. Is your world crashing down yet?
  
• Paris and Nicole appeal to different cultures. Interest in Paris is very high south of the border, with Guatemala, Ecuador and Venezuela all making the top five (the U.S. doesn't crack the top 10), Whereas Nicole is the one on the minds of teenage boys in Australia, Sweden and New Zealand.
  

Google Trends also lets you compare the popularity of multiple terms at once, allowing you to create visually stunning graphs like this one:



Notice the only time when interest in Cheney soared past Lindsay was when he shot that guy in the face! What a country! Heck, what a world!

Rummy Bad Secretary! So Bad!

A headline from CNN.com:

Americans Know More About Science, But Will Pretty Much Believe Anything

The AP recently wrote about a new study that says Americans are more knowledgeable about science than they were 20 years ago, but more of them believe in aliens and astrology, too. The story ran in newspapers across the country, and many editors wrote their own headlines. But contradictory information can be difficult to convey in a headline. Here's how some outlets handled it:

USA Today: "U.S. has more science smarts, for the most part"

Hartford Courant (and others): U.S. has more science smarts, sort of"

Seattle Times: "Science knowledge increases, but..."

MSNBC: "Americans sending mixed signals on science"

Not bad, but here are some of my suggestions:

"U.S. is smarter about science, but still kinda dumb"

"Americans understand global warming, say E.T. is at fault"

"Americans' science smarts increases, due to dreams they had last night"

America Hearts Anna Nicole, Take II

A friend of mine has expressed his displeasure with my last post about Anna Nicole Smith. First, he doesn't like the picture I chose, saying it doesn't do justice to the star of his teenage fantasies. Secondly, he firmly believes Anna Nicole's story says something meaningful about our culture and he disagrees with some of what I wrote. Now, I agree that the story of Anna Nicole's life reveals something about our culture. I also believe our obsession with her death reveals something about our culture. But I don't believe these revelations have anything to do with why people cared about her in the first place. Millions of people have incredible life stories that reveal something meaningful about our culture, but they don't warrant nonstop news coverage. Part of Anna's cultural value can certainly be found in what she symbolized, but I would still argue she was not understood (by most) as symbolic. For most of us she was, as I said, boobs, money, sex and drugs.

America Hearts Anna Nicole

Coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's death last week came in third place in its share of the news hole, according to the PEJ news coverage index. News outlets overall only devoted more time to Iraq policy and events. Oh, and the index considers the whole week, and Smith died Thursday, meaning it took only two days for her to almost catch up with Iraq.

The question of why we care about Smith has already been asked and answered by many: Marilyn, tragedy, rags-to-riches, blah blah blah. But, does any of that really ring true for anybody? I mean, come on, can't we just admit to why we really liked to hear about her? Drugs, boobs, money and sex. You don't have to be a diapered astronaut to understand the allure. But, as the story accompanying the PEJ index points out, the talking heads attempted to justify the double-D onslaught by trying to find "deeper meaning" in the stories of Smith and Lisa Nowak, an effort I find completely phony and pretentious. I can find deep meaning in my toenail clippings if need be, but why should I want to do that? We need to take these stories at face value and stop pretending that they say something about the American Dream. Nowak is a diaper-wearing, bat-shit crazy astronaut, for Christ's sake. Isn't that enough?

Finding Ourselves in Geektown

Inky Mountain was recently ordered to go forth and create an HTML table, which we don't know how to do. But we are very much in favor of learning - about HTML and about ourselves. So, we hopped over to the somewhat dorky site BlogThings.com, where taking a short quiz can answer important questions like which member of the Brady Bunch you would be or if you might be a sociopath. We already know we would totally be Bobby and while we may get cranky sometimes, we've never wanted to bump anyone off. So, we decided to take the quiz that would answer the most burning question of them all: What does it mean to be Inky? According to the test, Inky is:

I	Inspirational
N	Neat
K	Kind
Y	Young

Not bad, but "I" probably stands for "Idiot at HTML." That big blank space is not on purpose and we can't fix it. And we had added some really rad colors, too, but Blogger kept showing an error message. Alas, we are only geeks-in-training. UPDATED: Yeah! With some help, the white space is gone.

Watch It!

The PBS documentary-style program Frontline is airing "News War: Secrets, Sources and Spin" tonight, the first in a four-part series that will address issues in modern journalism. The show will discuss how some well-known journalists snuggle up close to members of the Bush administration, a sad fact made especially public through the Scooter Libby trial. Here's the synopsis:

In the first installment of a new, four-part special, "Frontline" examines the political and legal forces challenging the mainstream news media today and how the press has reacted in turn. Correspondent Lowell Bergman talks to the major players in the debates over the role of journalism in 2007, examining the relationship between the Bush administration and the press; the controversies surrounding the use of anonymous sources in reporting from Watergate to the present; and the unintended consequences of the Valerie Plame investigation-a confusing and at times ugly affair that ultimately damaged both reporters' reputations and the legal protections they thought they enjoyed under the First Amendment.

The program airs locally tonight at 9 p.m. on Rocky Mountain PBS, Channel 6 in Denver.

Editors Gone Wild

Is that a copy of In Touch magazine in my mailbox? If only. No, it's the new issue of Newsweek, starring Paris and Britney. Whew, we can rest easy for once! There's nothing of consequence happening in the world, and the time has come for Americans to struggle over this pressing question: "Are we raising a generation of 'prosti-tots'?"

A very serious question indeed. And for those jaded folks who think the story was just a cheap excuse to plaster the cover with boobs, don't be so quick to judge. The hard-hitting piece happens to be based on a startling new statistic: "A Newsweek poll found that 77 percent of Americans believe that Britney, Paris and Lindsay have too much influence on young girls." So you see, the magazine couldn't possibly uncover a statistic like that and not explore it.

And explore it they did. After mentioning their cover girls' lack of underwear as many times as possible, the authors vaguely muse about how much celebrity hoo-ha flashing affects third-grade girls. Their weighty conclusion? Not much:

Statistical evidence indicates that our girls are actually doing pretty well, in spite of Paris Hilton and those like her: teen pregnancy, drinking and drug use are all down, and there is no evidence that girls are having intercourse at a younger age. And in many ways it's a great time to be a girl: women are excelling in sports, academics and the job market.

Sigh. Read it if you must, but if you'd rather give yourself a thousand paper cuts than subject yourself to the idiocy, I'll help you out with my own edited version:

Some Americans think Britney's bad behavior negatively affects little girls, but that's not really true.

Super (Bowl) Meta-Marketing

It's Monday, and we all know who won the Super Bowl, but who won the ad war?

The Super Bowl, of course, is not really about football. Unless you're one of the relatively few Colts or Bears fans in Denver, watching the game was probably more about merrily drinking beer on a Sunday afternoon. And, of course, the commercials. I watched the game with a mishmash of football fans - Broncos, Cowboys, Patriots - all half-heartedly throwing their support behind one of the big teams. But their eyes were not exactly glued to the screen. Conversations paused briefly when a roar in the bar indicated a big play was in progress, but the chatting completely ceased during commercial breaks. Some of the ads had generated enough buzz beforehand that we were actually looking for them.

"Shhh. It's the K-Fed ad."

It's marketing magic. What other time do we want to watch commercials? "Please," we say to the huge corporations that can afford the $2.6 million price tag, "Sell me stuff. Entertain me with the antics of your silly frogs and horses!"

But for companies buying ad time, it's not enough to just tell the creative department to come up with something that will make 90 million tipsy people laugh. They can't just market their product in a commercial, they have to market the commercial itself. They have to market their marketing to their target market, get it? Some companies, such as Doritos and Chevrolet, held contests beforehand challenging students and other wannabes to create ads. Advertising Age criticized Super Bowl advertisers who failed to buy preferred search results from Google (Doing so would have ensured that Googlers looking for the Doritos ad online would have found in on Doritos' preferred site).

The game is over, but Super Bowl advertisers aren't resting just yet. The race is on to determine which ads will be quoted for the next year by America's frat boys and which ones were a waste of $2.6 million. As I write this, geeks all over the country are trying to make that call. Researchers at UCLA are actually performing brain scans to see which ads make viewers' brains light up. The verdict: Pizza rocks! Jessica Simpson, not so much. Over at YouTube, visitors can watch all the ads and vote on their rankings in what they've deemed the "SuperVote." The site has conveniently put 51 of 'em in one place so we can watch them again and again and again...Mmmm, Doritos...

It's a miracle!