In the late eighties, Mark Hertsgaard wrote a hugely important book called On Bended Knee, which catalogued the myriad ways in which the press was in thrall to the Reagan administration (contrary to the myth of the liberal media, which was in play even then).
I didn’t realize how badly I wanted someone to do the job for our current age until I started reading Eric Boehlert’s Lapdogs. As soon as I picked it up, I realized that this is what we’ve needed. If you follow the blogs closely, there probably won’t be any huge surprises, but it’s useful (if overwhelming) to have the entire argument laid out in one coherent narrative, rather than picking it up in bits and pieces over time. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Put it this way: I have a general rule against taking work-related reading matter to bed — my nighttime reading tends more toward mysteries and other escapist fiction — but this one is engrossing enough, I broke my own rule. A worthy successor to Hertsgaard, and a fabulous gift for anyone who yammers on about the liberal media, and how hard they are on Bush.
A couple of other media notes…
Official friend of TMW Daniel Handler has a new book out, here. (You may be more familiar with his alter ego, Lemony Snicket.)
And Neil Young’s new CD, Living With War, is available for preorder on Amazon — #3 with a bullet, as I write this.
And speaking of books and CDs and things — a number of generous readers sent birthday gifts off my Amazon wish list last month. I’m way behind on everything as a result of the book tour, including sending out thank yous, so I wanted to acknowledge those gifts here, and express my gratitude. Those unexpected packages showing up in the middle of the workweek are one of the happier little perks of this job.
The Congressional Research Service has issued a report on U.S. spending on the Iraq, saying it will soon reach $320 billion. As a Washington Post story notes, this includes “$2.5 billion diverted from other spending authorizations in 2001 and 2002 to prepare for the invasion.”
$2.5 billion. That’s even more than the $700 million Bob Woodward reported in Plan of Attack:
On July 17 [2002], [Tommy] Franks updated Rumfeld on the preparatory tasks in the region. He carefully listed the cost of each and the risk to the mission if they didn’t proceed along the timeline which set completion by December 1. Total cost: about $700 million.
The big-muscle movement was for airfields and fuel infrastructure in Kuwait where a massive covert public works program had already been launched…
Some of the funding would come from the supplemental appropriations bill then being worked out in Congress for the Afghanistan war and the general war on terrorism. The rest would come from old appropriations.
By the end of July, Bush had approved some 30 projects that would eventually cost $700 million. He discussed it with Nicholas E. Calio, the head of White House congressional relations. Congress, which is supposed to control the purse strings, had no real knowledge or involvement, had not even been notified that the Pentagon wanted to reprogram money.
Now, here’s Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution:
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.
So, back in olden times when we still cared what the Constitution said, Bush could clearly be impeached for this. Thank goodness those days are behind us. Kudos also to the Washington Post for demonstrating this by putting the reference to it in the second-to-last paragraph in an A16 story.
The Republicans have finally come up with a winning strategy for November. Bribery. (via Political Animal)
Most American taxpayers would get $100 rebate checks to offset the pain of higher pump prices for gasoline, under an amendment Senate Republicans hope to bring to a vote Thursday.
. . .
“Our plan would give taxpayers a hundred dollar gas tax holiday rebate check to help ease the pain that they’re feeling at the pump,” Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist announced Thursday. “It also includes strong federal anti-price gouging protection to protect consumers against anti-competitive behavior by oil companies or other suppliers of gasoline. Our free market system works, but it works best when there’s full accountability and full transparency.”
“Our free market system works”, says the Senator who wants to give $100 handouts as an election gimmick. What a douche. Didn’t he learn anything from dating? Desperation isn’t attractive, it’s just pathetic…
This time, it’s in the world of “chick lit” (don’t blame me for the term, that’s what they call it).
Kaavya Viswanathan, the Harvard sophomore accused of plagiarizing parts of her recently published chick-lit novel, acknowledged yesterday that she had borrowed language from another writer’s books, but called the copying “unintentional and unconscious.”
The book, “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life,” was recently published by Little, Brown to wide publicity. On Sunday, The Harvard Crimson reported that Ms. Viswanathan, who received $500,000 as part of a deal for “Opal” and one other book, had seemingly plagiarized language from two novels by Megan McCafferty, an author of popular young-adult books.
The thing that caught my eye was the way the process by which an unpublished 17-year-old ends up with a half million dollar advance. See if you can spot the strangely-glossed over part of the story:
In a profile published in The New York Times earlier this month, Ms. Viswanathan said that while she was in high school, her parents hired Katherine Cohen, founder of IvyWise, a private counseling service, to help with the college application process. After reading some of Ms. Viswanathan’s writing, Ms. Cohen put her in touch with the William Morris Agency, and Ms. Viswanathan eventually signed with Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, an agent there.
Ms. Walsh said that she put Ms. Viswanathan in touch with a book packaging company, 17th Street Productions (now Alloy Entertainment), but that the plot and writing of “Opal” were “1,000 percent hers.”
Alloy, which referred questions to Little, Brown, holds the copyright to “Opal” with Ms. Viswanathan.
I have some experience in the world of publishing, as does my wife, but neither of us had the slightest idea what a “book packaging company” was, nor why it would hold a joint copyright to this novel along with the author. The Times article offers no further explanation, so I googled the term and this is what I came up with:
I’m willing to bet my favorite pen that most people who are reading this have no idea what a book packager is. Until I worked for one, I didn’t know they existed, either. Book packaging is a quiet underbelly of the publishing world, and remains an unsaturated market for ambitious freelance writers. And that’s exactly why you should learn more about it.
* * *
Packagers are also known for producing series books. Quite often, a successful series will become a “fill-in-the-blanks” exercise, wherein talented writers and artists can easily continue the series. In these cases, publishing houses may develop an outline, then pass it over to a packager to bring it to completed project. The packager then sends the outline to a commissioned author. Once complete, the packager delivers the final product to the publisher in print-ready condition. Occasionally, they even handle the printing.
Would it shock you to learn that the Nancy Drew, Sweet Valley High, Goosebumps, and many of the Complete Idiot’s Guide and For Dummies series are packaged?
Although the term “book packaging” wasn’t used then, Edward Stratemeyer may have been the father of this sector of the industry. He formed a company, Stratemeyer Syndicates, to create books from his ideas. These became classic series, including The Bobbsey Twins, The Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew. Stratemeyer hired ghostwriters to work from his outlines, paying them a flat fee and publishing them under several pseudonyms.
So what was the book packager’s role in this specific instance? According to the Harvard Crimson:
Viswanathan worked with a book packaging company—17th Street Productions, which is owned by Alloy Entertainment—in the development of “Opal Mehta.” Alloy Entertainment and Viswanathan own the copyright to the novel, and Variety reported in February that Alloy Entertainment, along with Contrafilm, is slated to produce the film adaptation. The rights to the novel were purchased that month by DreamWorks.
“As has been previously reported, we helped Kaavya conceptualize and plot the book,” Leslie Morgenstein, the president of Alloy Entertainment, wrote in an e-mail today. “We are looking into the serious allegations detailed in the Crimson before commenting further.”
All of which leads to the obvious question: how far did this “help” extend? Morgenstein’s statement does seem to contradict the doth-protest-too-much insistence on the part of the agent (as reported in the Times) that the plot and writing are “1000 percent” Ms. Viswanathan’s. Basically, everyone seems to be dancing around the possibility that this may have been, to some extent, a ghostwritten book.
The shared copyright also strikes me as peculiar, as does the half-mill advance to a 17-year-old. Obviously I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’d be willing to bet some modest sum (my own advances falling rather short of the half million mark) that there’s more to this story than is being reported so far.
Calling the oil issue a matter of national security, President Bush outlined a plan Tuesday to cut gasoline costs and temporarily stopped deposits to the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
. . .
The plan calls for making sure consumers and taxpayers are treated fairly, promoting greater fuel efficiency, boosting the U.S. gasoline supply and investing aggressively in gasoline alternatives.
Bush also has ordered a federal investigation into possible cheating, price gouging or illegal manipulation in the gasoline markets.
Bush said consumers must first be treated fairly at the gas pump.
“Americans understand by and large that the price of crude oil is going up and that [gas] prices are going up, but what they don’t want and will not accept is manipulation of the market,” Bush said. “And neither will I.”
The President has so little credibility on this issue that this is just laughable. Expecting oil-millionaire Bush to protect consumers is about as believable of O.J. Simpson’s promise to catch the “real killers”. The President is so untrustworthy on this issue that this whole gambit just makes him look foolish.
What makes Bush look even more foolish is the fact that his “bold” plan was announced at the convention for an ethanol lobbying group :
Next time, maybe you should announce your plans on more neutral ground, Mr. President. Then again, a big chunk of the speech is a love-letter to the ethanol industry anyways, including this hilarious line :
The way I like to put it would be — it’s a good thing when a president can sit there and say, “Gosh, we’ve got a lot of corn. And that means we’re less dependent on foreign sources of oil.”
Gosh, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that agribusinesses giant Archer-Daniels Midland (whose Senior Vice President for Ethanol Sales & Marketing sits on the RFA’s board of directors) has given over $3 million dollars in political “donations” since 2000. I support biological alternatives to fossil fuels, but the idea that the President woke up one day and suddenly cared about energy independence is ludicrous. You’re thirty years late to this party, George, so it pretty clear that the only reason you’re showing up now is because somebody paid you to attend.
Piggybacking on Tom’s post about the ridiculous idea of having a “standing section” on airplanes, the magazine scans reminded me of where this idea might have originated. On the left you’ll see the standing chair prototype from the post below and on the right is a couple of grainy screenshots from the 50’s sci-fi classic “This Island Earth”. Do those chairs on the spaceship look familiar?
When this movie got the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment a few years back, one of the robots joked “Our chair technology is lightyears ahead of yours.” That may be true, but we’re catching up quickly. Now if we could only find a better way to fend off those pesky mutant attacks.
According to the Times this morning, Airbus is experimenting with ways to make air travel even more closely resemble a rush hour subway ride:
The airlines have come up with a new answer to an old question: How many passengers can be squeezed into economy class?
A lot more, it turns out, especially if an idea still in the early stage should catch on: standing-room-only “seats.”
Airbus has been quietly pitching the standing-room-only option to Asian carriers, though none have agreed to it yet. Passengers in the standing section would be propped against a padded backboard, held in place with a harness, according to experts who have seen a proposal.
Yes, you read that right. A standing section, as the Times illustrates with this helpful graphic:
I’ve done a few cartoons about the indignities of air travel over the years — both pre- and post-9/11 — but I have to admit, the concept of a standing section on airplanes never occurred to me.
Fortunately, it doesn’t appear that the idea is exactly “taking off” (ha! ha! humor is my business!) with airlines, at least so far:
The two Asian airlines seen as the most likely to buy a large plane for short-haul flights, All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines, are lukewarm about the Airbus plan.
“Airbus had talked with us about an 800-seat configuration for domestic flights,” said Rob Henderson, a spokesman for All Nippon Airways. “It does not fit with our present plans going forward.”
That doesn’t mean that anyone is spending a whole lot of time worrying about how to make steerage class passengers more comfortable, of course.
But even short of that option, carriers have been slipping another row or two of seats into coach by exploiting stronger, lighter materials developed by seat manufacturers that allow for slimmer seatbacks. The thinner seats theoretically could be used to give passengers more legroom but, in practice, the airlines have been keeping the amount of space between rows the same, to accommodate additional rows.
The result is an additional 6 seats on a typical Boeing 737, for a total of 156, and as many as 12 new seats on a Boeing 757, for a total of 200.
* * *
“We make the seats thinner,” said Alexander Pozzi, the director for research and development at Weber Aircraft, a seat manufacturer in Gainesville, Tex. “The airlines keep pitching them closer and closer together. We just try to make them as comfortable as we can.”
* * *
One of the first to use the thinner seats in coach was American Airlines, which refitted its economy-class section seven years ago with an early version made by the German manufacturer Recaro.
“Those seats were indeed thinner than the ones they replaced, allowing more knee and legroom,” Tim Smith, a spokesman for American, said. American actually removed two rows in coach, adding about two inches of legroom, when it installed the new seats. It promoted the change with a campaign called “More Room Throughout Coach.”
But two years later, to cut costs, American slid the seats closer together and ended its “More Room” program without fanfare.
* * *
Boeing is under similar pressure to squeeze more seats onto its newest aircraft, the midsize Boeing 787. Some airlines are planning to space the seats just 30 inches apart from front to back, or about one inch less than the current average.
And rather than installing eight seats across the two aisles, which would afford passengers additional elbow room, more than half of Boeing’s airline customers have opted for a nine-abreast configuration in the main cabin, said Blake Emery, a marketing director at Boeing. Even so, he said, “It will still be as comfortable as any economy-class section today.”
I suppose that last bit is technically true, in the sense that economy class sections today are not remotely comfortable to begin with, so squeezing in another seat will not make them any more so.
We’ve come a long way since the luxurious novelty of jet travel was first introduced…
Suppose your local police department suddenly threw out all the rules and started acting “crazy” on the theory that the criminals would get scared and stay home. Would that actually make your town safer or more dangerous?
This is such a deeply immature view that I honestly don’t know these influential middle aged men are even allowed to drive much less be taken seriously on foreign policy. The United States is a superpower. We do not need to “act crazy.”
