Robert Parry on the economy's dolt factor and the "stomach-turning awareness that the leader of the most important economy in the world doesnıt have the skills or wisdom to point a way out."

Facing its own economic slowdown, Aspen promotes sex over snow.

The Guardian reports on the University of Alabama's shadowy network of all-white fraternities and sororities known as "the Machine."

A Face for Radio What do the people on NPR really look like?

It's loony bin time, as loopy Larry King faces off with aliens.

In an excerpt from "The Accidental President," Supreme Court Justice David Souter is quoted as saying that if he'd had "one more day" he could have convinced Justice Anthony Kennedy to change his vote in Bush v. Gore.

Hell's Kitchen As part of his research for a study on "vendor response to consumer complaints," a Columbia University professor sent a fabricated letter to 240 New York City restaurants, claiming that his wedding anniversary dinner had resulted in food poisoning.

Readers respond to the gastronomic false alarm.

AOL Time Warner cooks the books, by selling ads to itself!

Book publishers are targeting their version of Napster -- the public library.

Teflon II? With few exceptions, the mainstream media continues to give President Bush a free pass.

Read an interview with John Stauber, whose PR Watch monitors the behind-the-scenes manipulation of the news.

Imploring Al Gore to step aside, David Corn writes that "Gore, alas, will still be Gore in 2004."

Truth Goes Missing More interested in selling the story than in getting it right, the media has ignored the growing list of whoppers and flip-flops by the attorney representing Chandra Levy's family.

Westward Whoa! Speaking at an emotionally charged hearing on the DOE's proposal to store nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, the mayor of Las Vegas threatens to arrest anyone who drives a truck with a cargo of high-level nuclear waste through the city.

Fresh from his induction into the "Little League Hall of Excellence," President Bush agrees to engage in a silly publicity stunt with the NFL, CBS and FOX.

Bill Maher advances the politically incorrect notion that Danny Almonte should share the blame for deceiving Little League officials.

With only so many people to sell cable, Internet, and phone service to, increased corporate profits will come from consolidation and higher prices. This tour of the media industrial complex identifies who's trying to get in your wallet and who's working to keep them out.

Who's the Enemy? Ben Cohen asks "Why does the federal government want to spend $344 billion on the Pentagon, when it currently spends only $42 billion on education, $26 billion on affordable housing, $6 billion on Head Start and $1 billion on school construction?"

Cast your spending vote at Cohen's splashy "Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities" Web site.

Online Journalism Review's Ken Layne mixes it up with Business Week over his charge that a writer for the magazine's Web site plagiarized one of his columns.

The standoff between VP Dick Cheney and the GAO over who attended meetings to draft the administration's energy plan is down to the wire.

The fur flies as CNN stages a raid on the "talent" at Fox News Channel.

Hard Right Eric Boehlert, reporting on CNN's courting of right-wing viewers, notes that following President Bush's stem cell address, "Not only did no Democratic elected officials appear on screen, but CNN didn't present one Democratic-leaning pollster, consultant or columnist to utter a stern word in protest."

Wall Street Journal editor John "Family Values" Fund will be championing this cause after reading what Media Whores Online published about him.

Time's person of the week? It's you!

The Financial Times reports that China is set to allow News Corp. and AOL Time Warner access to its domestic television audience in return for their agreeing to make China Central Television widely available in the U.S.

The Freepers cannot contain their excitement over Janet Reno's candidacy.

Ad Prose The jeweler Bulgari paid British writer Faye Weldon an undisclosed sum to mention the company at least a dozen times in her new novel. Weldon, a former advertising copywriter, went them one better, naming her book "The Bulgari Connection."

Rick Moody and other authors respond to Weldon's mercantilism: "Don't your books sell enough copies already? Don't be a jerk!"

He Said That?! The kid glove treatment that most mainstream media afforded Jesse Helms when he announced his retirement from the Senate fails to square with Helms unrepentant racism and homophobia. Charlotte's Creative Loafing on "The Prince of Darkness."

David Broder attacked reporters for ignoring Helms' racist career in covering his announcement, but was mum about Helms' nastiness for the previous 15 years- in other words - when it mattered.

Longtime New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael has died at 82. Read a Salon profile, interviews with Cineaste and Modern Maturity, her comments on the fun of writing and visit a fan site. Her 1969 Harpers essay "Trash, Art, and the Movies," was named as one of the top 100 works of U.S. journalism in the 20th century.

Recapping the glorious summer of Condit, Frank Rich quotes Salon's Jake Tapper, who was looking for a story at the D.C. hotel where the closed-door Social Security commission was meeting: "It was weird that there were no other reporters in sight. Maybe there would have been if Anne Marie Smith had been staying there."

Writing in one of AOL Time Warner's top brands, Lance Morrow wonders, "Can it be that the corporate owners of the media have an interest in corrupting the investigative functions of journalism and diverting its resources to sensational but essentially insignificant stories?"

Inspired by "Truth in Love," a campaign that encouraged gays and lesbians to change their sexual orientation, a coalition of conservative groups is launching "Shake the Nation," which includes sending baby rattles to senators to show support for an anti-abortion Supreme Court nominee.

Lights Out E. J. Dionne wants to know why the "so-called liberal media" and Democrats in the Senate aren't demanding that Vice President Cheney make public exactly whom he consulted in creating his pro-industry energy proposal.

The Los Angeles Times names names, describing a who's who of Republican lobbyists, large energy companies and trade groups that successfully influenced Cheney's report.

Unlike Bill O'Reilly's Fox News Channel program, which purports to be "spin free," www.oreilly-sucks.com is up front about its bias.

Read Me The New Yorker profiles one of the last veteran practitioners of the dying art of preparing and holding cue cards.

A coalition of environmental groups takes legal action to delay preliminary work on President Bush's missile defense program

Public Housing Ernest Hollings, South Carolina's 79-year-old "junior" senator, says that 98-year-old Strom Thurmond is no longer "mentally keen," but that "the poor fellow doesn't have any place to go. He doesn't have a home and someone has said the best nursing home is the U.S. Senate."

The Greatest Vendetta on Earth After Regardies published a controversial profile of the Feld family, which owns the Ringling Brothers-Barnum & Bailey Circuses, Feld Entertainment spent the next eight years harassing the article's freelance author.

Send in the Clowns Part two, in which Feld Entertainment engages in "one of the strangest campaigns ever waged against a writer," an eight-year-long operation to divert Jan Pottker into different projects.

Hearing is Believing A blind city councilman in Naples FL wants satirical paintings of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky removed from a local art center because he was told they're obscene.

In These Times reports that Pinkerton's, which "cut a bloody swath through American history as union-busters and kidnappers," is now heading up high school snitch squads.

A Georgia man gets a visit from the Secret Service after affixing an anti-Bush sentiment to the back of his truck.

Viewing strategies for people without a television.

Longtime Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk reports from Gaza: "I cannot fail to remember Beirut in 1982, when Sharon's invading army had surrounded the PLO. Gaza now is a miniature Beirut -- it's as if Arafat and Sharon are replaying their bloody days in Lebanon."

Fisk's Middle East reporting for the Independent is archived here.

A Jew who was one of the most beloved men in a Palestinian village is gunned down.

A journalism prof writes that "the entire nation has been treated all summer to something too depraved to be called a media circus; such a description does a disservice to even the grimiest backlot circus and grifters."

Clowns and carneys in Gibsonton FL took umbrage at being lumped in with a previous media circus.

Top-Shelf Grifting Secrets of the PR pros revealed! How to make up to $450 per hour in the fast-growing field of crisis management.

Read the new installment of Bruce Kluger and David Slavin's pitch-perfect satire: "Memo to George."

Is mall walking your game? If so, you'll be interested in the latest controversy involving these sneaker-shod chronics.

TomPaine.com publishes a hilarious batch of over-the-top-nasty letters it received from Fox News Channel viewers.

Winners Talk, Losers Walk "Crossfire" hosts a lively debate over the government's role in gambling, including an interview with one of the four Powerball winners, who calls lotteries "the poor man's hope."

Get Over It? In a Los Angeles Times profile, Mark Crispin Miller argues that voter outrage over the 2000 Presidential race outcome is intensifying.

Book buyers vote against the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore decision.

Why does President Bush continue to read the same pre-school book to elementary students?

The president also invites the media to watch him work, gives every American a nickname and makes fun of a bald guy.

Tank God A Methodist church in Rosslyn VA ousts its long-time tenant, a colorful character whose Exxon station occupied the ground floor of the country's only "pump N pray."

Multiperplexing Thirty years ago there were approximately one-sixth as many movie screens as today, yet there were six times as many movies showing. Instead of giving moviegoers variety, multiplexing has given them monopoly.

Gross Receipts Verlyn Klinkenborg writes that "Even summer has to offer something more essential than the democratic sensation of having seen 'Jurassic Park: The Rerun' the same weekend everyone else in America saw it."

Paul Gigot, who famously described the storming of Dade county recount deliberations by paid Congressional staffers as a "bourgeois riot," pens his final "Potomac Watch" column.

Al Franken on CNN's talks with Rush Limbaugh.

Big Get Bigger The audience for news and information Web sites grew almost 15% in the last year, with the biggest gains going to well-established news outlets.

Yahoo responds to FAIR's charges that editorial and opinion columnists on Yahoo -- whose 11 million monthly users give it the Web's largest news audience -- are inordinately white, male and conservative.

Church and State The Florida Department of Corrections has established "faith-based" prison dorms where "religious" inmates live separately from other prisoners and spend their days immersed in religious services and study.

Didn't Bleed, Didn't Lead A rural Minnesotan eloquently laments the decision by a Twin Cities public TV station to kill a newscast that was a valuable antidote to corporately-produced blather.

Alan Dershowitz and Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner have been mixing it up over the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore. Listeners discuss their appearance on public radio's "The Connection," and host Nina Totenberg's treatment of Dershowitz. (note: To hear Dershowitz, start at minute 19 of the broadcast.)

Read an e-mail debate between Dershowitz and Posner.

Read more about Totenberg's professional conduct.

Do you have what it takes to host NPR's "Talk of the Nation?"

Los Angeles Times media critic Howard Rosenberg writes in his analysis of Connie Chung's interview with Gary Condit: "It's an old story, media inflating a story with their own gaseous helium and then using the monstrously oversized blimp they create as justification for their relentless coverage."

Howard Kurtz covers the coverage and a Vanity Fair writer says Condit didn't challenge her use of the term "affair" when he was interviewed for the magazine's December issue.

Swearing at the police is not a crime.

TV's "clueless clutter" is about to get worse as UPN proposes selling on-screen advertising during its shows.

Commentators from East, West and South challenge President Bush's pronouncement accompanying his "Home to the Heartland Tour" -- that the country's rural center is a bastion of traditional values.

A community broadcasting veteran writes that the 30th anniversary of NPR (National Private Radio) is no cause for celebration: "Poor NPR. Emasculated, lost its nuts, and at such a young age."

The once ubiquitous free glass of water falls victim to business's push to sell the bottled variety.

"Ask CNN" toes Monsanto's corporate line on GMOs, as "Headline News" gets yet another makeover.

A new survey finds that AOL Time Warner is trusted even less than Microsoft!

Can a Federal Reserve plan to honor "Consumers of the Month" convince Americans to spend the country back to economic prosperity?

The Washington Post flatteringly profiles Barbara Comstock, the National Republican Committee's queen of "oppositional research." "Digging Dirt," a BBC documentary on the 2000 presidential election, paints her work in a less positive light.

The Dueling Dons On the Media examines the gold-plated paradox of Don Imus, whose highbrow/lowbrow duality attracts listeners from across the spectrum. Phillip Nobile indicts and Frank Rich defends.

TomPaine.com's "Imus Watch" chronicles the I-Man's slurs.

It's all in a day's work for Rep. Bernie Sanders, as he offers a critique of corporate media and a call for political revolution.

Newspapers go loco over local coverage. Plus, how to stop worrying and learn to love.

College campuses heat up, as porn stars deliver guest lectures and male professors overcome the stigma of teaching adult studies.

The Thing How information went from being the lubricant of ideas to "the thing itself."

The Miami Herald reports on the clash between free speech and sanitized TV, as the Latin Grammys move from Miami to Los Angeles to avoid anti-Castro protestors.

White power music can't count on a televised awards show anytime soon, but the Internet is helping take high-decibel hate worldwide.

Read about "hatecore" label Resistance Records and view photos from Hammerfest 2000, the movement's Woodstock.

Peace of Art Thieves who stole a Chagall painting from a NYC museum in June say they will return it when Israelis and Palestinians are at peace.

Take a tour (with pictures) of Russia's Arctic armpit.

Living Room LIVE! A San Antonio TV station experiments with citizen correspondents.

Mag Flags Journo's Slags Variety's editor-in-chief, Peter Bart, "one of the most despised and feared people in Hollywood," was suspended after a Los Angeles magazine profile charged that he frequently used racist, sexist and anti-gay language and sold a movie script in violation of the paper's policy.

Amy Wallace's profile, a must-read for insight into the workings of Tinseltown, has caused such an uproar that the Los Angeles Times dispatched six reporters to cover the story about the story.

A British novelist lashes out at the "cultural imperialism" and "sheer stupidity" of Hollywood films which reduce world-changing events to "slushy romances."

Noting his futile attempts to retire from New Media criticism, "I keep coming back like some punch-drunk loser," OJR's Ken Layne disses Salon: "On its best days, Salon offers something comparable to the alternative weeklies you pick up at the liquor store, for free, if your hands aren't full."

MSNBC invites readers to play editor and decide if Gary Condit trumps welfare reform.

W After Dark President Bush's speeches lose coherence as the day goes on, leading to a stop in technological Transylvania.

Synergasmic Sluething CNN's revamped "Headline News" is busted for inordinately plugging shows on other AOL Time Warner networks.

The newly-appointed chairman of Time Warner's interactive division spells out his company's plans to get even more money from cable subscribers.

American Family Radio's Rev. Don Wildmon built a Christian radio empire by exploiting a loophole in FCC law that allowed him to take over small-market "translator" stations, many of which were owned by NPR affiliates.

MTV is filming this season's "Real World" in Chicago's Wicker Park, prompting residents to rage against the machine.

Should you be able to call a reporter at home?

Fantastica! A California Superior Court judge is removed from the bench for compulsive lying, but his attorney prefers "pseudologia fantastica."

CBS decided not to broadcast a handful of "Family Law" reruns after Procter & Gamble -- which has a $300 million ad contract with CBS and corporate parent Viacom -- said it would withdraw its commercials because the content was too controversial.

What are the 10 worst-selling books on Amazon.com?

Mickey Kaus announces a plan to expose the New York Times for ripping-off story ideas without crediting the original's author.

Last year, Daniel Forbes exposed the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy plan to reward magazines and TV Producers for publishing anti-drug editorial, and weaving it into their storylines. Now, he uncovers a similar arrangement with classroom newscaster, Channel One.

Manhattan's Milosevic A how-to guide for anyone interested in placing Henry Kissinger under citizen's arrest.

Online Journalism Review's Matt Welch takes on the critics of Chandra Levy coverage.

Read the quarterly earnings report for Bush Inc.

In an interview with the Guardian, Michael Wolffe says that media consolidation is "born out of pure desperation and ego mania. It's about being weak. In one way it's scary but in another, it's pathetic. This whole idea of aggregation is meaningless. It's just artifice in place of an audience."

Browse Wolffe's magazine media columns.

Last year Wal-Mart was sued almost 5,000 times, second only to the U.S. government. Web sites such as Wal-Mart Litigation Project counter the company's hardball stance against plaintiffs, while Wal-Mart Watch and Wal-Mart Sucks counter everything else.

Tobacco companies are engaging in a legal sleight of hand to defend their continued magazine advertising to minors.

An Iowa man is selling everything on e-Bay, and he's documenting it at allmylifeforsale.com.

Patently Ridiculous At the heart of high drug prices is "patent protectionism", or as the drug companies prefer to call it, "intellectual property rights." To support it, Americans are paying at least $4 in higher drug prices for every $1 that drug manufacturers spend on research.

Consumers looking for price relief in Mexico are being subjected to unsafe counterfeit drugs, as a new market emerges that mirrors the international narcotics trade.

Bad Beat Nick Hornby listens to Billboard's ten best-selling albums, one of which was responsible for "the single most dispiriting moment of my professional life so far this millennium."

The top ten signs that a Green Party convention has been hijacked by Republicans.

Read an interview with "Fast Food Nation" author, Eric Schlosser.

The Daily Howler masterfully excoriates The New York Times and Maureen Dowd for their piddling obsession with Al Gore's new beard. And don't miss The Howler's critique of "Hardball" host and "full-time dissembler," Chris Matthews.

Showdown in Waco An unedited anatomy of a protest against the President of the United States.

Dean Baker debunks the myth of free markets, writing that "Conservatives like the government every bit as much as progressives do, they just don't advertise this fact."

Rather Candid Following President Bush's stem cell address, Dan Rather told CBS viewers that the subject is too complex for TV and radio, and recommended that "if you're really interested in this, you'll want to read, in detail, one of the better newspapers tomorrow."

With athletes thanking Christ for just about everything, it was only a matter of time before "Jesus sports statues" hit the market.

How Bill Clinton's memoir might deal with the media and the ladies.

The lure of danger and discomfort as a corrective to the seductive ease of modern life.

Are you someone who drinks water, has indoor plumbing and drives a car? If so, you may want to read this commentary on the state of the nation's infrastructure.

A twenty-five-year-old reporter for the Huntsville Item gives a methodical account of her job covering Texas' executions.

The New York Times profiles fraud-hunters who unmask pretenders to military glory.

The Wall Street Journal editorializes against Senator Clinton's move to ban the interstate shipment of game fowl used for cockfighting: "Someone should tell her to quit sticking her beak in where it isn't wanted."

For more on the subject, read Burkhard Bilger's "Enter the Chicken (On the bayou, cockfighting remains undefeated)" from Harpers, and the story of a Dallas woman's futile attempt to halt a neighborhood cockfight.

Pray and Say Cheese Arianna Huffington writes that a Bush administration photo-op cynically exploited prayer.

Bush adviser Karl Rove fails to mention ties to his own firm in a financial disclosure form.

Stocking the Deck Since going to work at the White House, Rove has met with officials or trade association representatives of at least six companies in which he said he had more than $100,000 worth of stock.

The Weekly Standard profiles Rove "The Impressario," while The Nation's David Corn wonders if he's "Rove-r and Out?"

Trash Talkin' South Dakota's governor says that he's thinking about scrapping his state's Adopt-a-Highway program rather than allow a gay-rights organization to participate in it.

Dead to Rights Even though Invesco Funds Group paid $60 million to put its name on Denver's new football stadium, the Denver Post will continue to call it Mile High Stadium. Read an op-ed by Ralph Nader opposing the naming rights sale. Could this become a national trend?

The Rocky Mountain News toes the corporate (bottom) line.

Lying Eyes The controversial face recognition software used by Tampa police fingers the wrong man.

Writing in Vanity Fair, Gore Vidal defends Timothy McVeigh as a heroic freedom fighter.

As part of a lawsuit, blacks working at Christian Coalition headquarters charge that they were forced to enter through a back door and use a separate lunch room.

Suge Knight walks and he talks. Plus, getting trashed with Wu-Tang Clan.

Are Bill O'Reilly and Chris Matthews becoming caricatures of themselves?

Faith based ponzi schemes are increasing dramatically as an army of con artists for Christ spread the get rich quick gospel.

Attorney Barry Richard, the registered Democrat who supervised President Bush's Florida legal team, tells the ABA convention that the Supreme Court made a mistake by stopping the recount.

Clinton beats Bush in cardboard cutout popularity, while White House rent-a-protestors cater to checkbook activists.

The Financial Times advances the theory that global consumer brands are no longer a sure bet.

CNN's revamped "Headline News" bullies viewers not to change channels, is headache-inducing and "a lame televised text service with generic talking heads who have about as much personality as Max Headroom." All of which may be good news for newspapers.

In his last dispatch from Washington, a British journalist says that the one thing he won't miss is America's love affair with 24/7. USA Today reports on the explosion in round-the-clock businesses.

The White House hands Talk magazine a publicity bonanza over a "jailbird" photo spread of the first twins.

Party Politics Two surveys of voting habits indicate that the gulf between Democrats and Republicans is not about economic class, as much as it is about different cultural conceptions of sexual freedom.

Christopher Hitchens on the charm and eternal absurdity of the California dream.

Boomers are creating a boom in boomer-bashing books.

There's a new arrival on the nuclear weapons scene and it's a bunker-buster, the Bush administration's baby nuke.

The li'l nuke however, is no match for the government's missing H-bomb. The Air Force has gone to great links to conceal its loss of a thermonuclear weapon -- one of 11 nukes lost since 1945 -- that has been MIA off the coast of Savannah, Georgia for the past 40 years.

Death Penalty Food and underwear conglomerate Sara Lee Corporation received a legal slap on the wrist after contaminated meat from its Bil Mar foods division killed 21 people and seriously injured more than 100.

Read the unusual "joint press release" issued by Sara Lee and the U.S. Attorney announcing the plea agreement, a Detroit Free Press article on the settlement and the paper's special report on the killer hot dogs.

"The Beast" is known for its ravenous appetite, and "when it heard the word 'intern,' its hunger synapses glowed." Plus, how to keep a story going when there's nothing left to go on, and a look back at a 1950's media feeding frenzy.

Something from Nothing Mark Crispin Miller discusses how President Bush uses speech not to say anything, but merely to depict himself as saying something, "boldly" and "decisively."

Maureen Dowd on Al Gore's re-election campaign and his chances of evicting the White House's "Scalia squatter." "Poor Al. He is the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, and yet he never will be."

Republican activist Barbara Olson insincerely apologizes for calling Bill Clinton's mother a barfly.

For the first time since 1991 a journalist has been jailed by a U.S. federal court, for failing to surrender notes and tapes involving a murder case. Follow the story at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Web site, read a Washington Post account and a Lakeland Ledger editorial.

Getting it Right Reacting to the success of the Fox News Channel, new CNN head Walter Isaacson meets with GOP congressional leaders on how to improve his network's image with conservatives.

CNN's "Headline News" gets an MTV-style makeover.

Double-Agent As his own newspaper was reporting on a major investigation by Minnesota's attorney general into Allina Health System, the state's largest health care provider, Minneapolis Star Tribune publisher John Schueler was also advising Allina's CEO on how to deal with the media as part of its "war room" effort to sway public opinion.

The long and short of Bush v. Gore.

Rep. Henry Waxman is persisting in his attempt to get an election night video that purportedly shows GE's Jack Welch lobbying NBC News to call the election for George W. Bush.

A posting at Plastic.com refers to an article on Coca-Cola's Web site lauding an Olive Garden campaign against water consumption, that was designed to increase beverage sales. Coke appears to have already removed the article from its site.

The critical acclaim for "Apocalypse Now Redux" was largely missing when the film was first released in 1979.

Tim Robbins defends his vote for Ralph Nader, and compares Democrats' demonization of Nader to the party's treatment of Upton Sinclair when he ran for governor of California in 1934. Will the Green Party even run a presidential candidate in 2004?

Would you like to have the president in your pocket?

Actions Without Retractions William Saletan finds that most of the publications, pundits and TV news programs that reported a minister's phony claim that his daughter had an affair with Gary Condit have done a poor job of fessing up to the truth.

If you should be wary of PR, shouldn't you be wary of the journalism that feeds on it?

CNN makes its choice, and it's the mercurial Sinatra of politics, the man to Bush's mannequin.

Memo To George: It's time for Operation We Have to Get Black People to Like Us!

The New York Observer profiles a "literary hooker cum-novelist," who says that in her experience, hooking is probably much healthier than writing.

The 24/7 working over of working people.

Butterfly ballot designer Theresa LePore strikes again.

Not 'N Sync A bad economy meets worse pop culture offerings.

Paramount Pictures is playing hardball with magazines that publish reviews before a movie's opening day.

Are you looking for a good t-shirt marketing idea?

GLAAD reports that Fox News Channel was duped by a guest claiming to represent the non-existent "Gay Inclusive Advertising Campaign." Read the story and the transcript.

Joe Conason says Americans were duped by the U.S. military, which recently confirmed the presence of a radar beacon on the missle shot down as part of the much-publicized July 14 test. He criticizes the mainstream media for not following-up on the revelation, failing to note that word of the beacon appeared in a Newshour interview on July 16.

OxyContin sheds its "hillbilly heroin" image as it moves into big cities and suburbs.

Celebrity Statesman Bill Clinton begins a second attempt to launch his ex-presidency, as a poll finds Americans wishing that he was still running the show.

Much to the dismay of technology firms, "upgrade fatigue" has set in among tech-sated consumers.

Discarded Decadence Vultures swoop in to pick clean the carcass of a dead dot-com.

As an advertising slowdown hits the magazine industry, conglomerates are gobbling up independent titles.

Eric Boehlert writes that "Journalism today, particularly the bold brand perfected in Washington over the past decade, has become such an odd, arrogant animal it no longer plays by any recognizable rules."

Is there a rule against pornographers in the newsroom?

The sneaky marketing of Lucinda Williams' new album.

Nevada Woman magazine is selling cover stories for a reported $15,000, but not letting readers in on the deal. The "Women of Wells Fargo" bought their way onto June's cover.

A high-powered New York publicist's reversal of fortune makes for "one of the greatest Schadenfreude festivals in modern memory."

A former Republican consultant offers a searing indictment of the Bush admininistration's unilaterism. Are they monkeying around in the wrong direction?

The Navajo "code talkers," who used words that had never been written down to foil Japanese intelligence during WW II, are finally honored, with Congressional Gold Medals. During the first 48 hours of the battle at Iwo Jima, they relayed more than 800 error-free messages.

Car 54 How Could You? "Telecaust" survivors demand sitcom reparations and the establishment of a special "air-crimes" tribunal.

Now That's Crazy! According to one tabloid reporter, "Hollywood hasn't been this crazy since Liz Taylor and Richard Burton."

Ian Frazier on the rise of spontaneous ignorance.

Nike's Australian billboard campaign mocks its critics by lampooning the idea of slave labor.

Right Back at Ya Nike isn't laughing about an Austrian billboard campaign featuring far-right populist Jörg Haider posing with a child whose shirt is adorned with the swoosh.

In an interview with London's Daily Telegraph, far-right Clinton-harasser Barbara Olson attributes President Bush's reliance on women as high-level advisors to the example set by his mother: "Look at Bill Clinton's mother, as opposed to George W's. Is your mother a barfly who gets used by men? Or is your mother a strong woman who demanded respect for her ideas and always received it?"

It's an Ad, Ad, Ad, Ad World. And a noisy one too.

IBM hits the ground advertising to commercialize public space.

She's Baaaack! In a move that should assure a successful get out the vote drive for Florida's Democrats, Katherine Harris plans to run for Congress in 2002.

Marriage Split The New York Times' editorial page support of same-sex unions doesn't extend to its wedding announcement page.

Bill and George W On the 15th anniversary of President Bush's sobriety, a fellow ex-drinker speculates on how the president's decision to quit drinking informs his politics.

Jimmy on Dubya In an interview with a Columbus, GA newspaper, an ex-president uncharacteristically criticizes a sitting one: "I have been disappointed in almost everything he has done."

Death Next Door With two high-profile executions behind it and 18 more coming down the pike, Terre Haute "promises to be a different place twenty men from now."

Todd Gitlin on why TV's "barking heads" are drooling.

Can truth outlast a green light for media mergers? Robert Scheer writes that "what's good for the bottom line, and the journalists' bank accounts, may not be good for society."

Healthy Battle Jack in the Box takes on big tobacco and gets the last laugh!

Dying To Be Thin A pro-anorexia movement has sprung up on the Web, preaching the gospel of thinness and providing a controversial support network for starving girls. Eating disorder professionals react.

Rupert's Psychic Friends Network In an effort to fill the many hours that it devotes to Chandra Levy coverage each day, Fox News Channel has added psychics to the mix, regularly interviewing them about Levy's disappearance.

Move over Roger Clinton, it's Darrell Wayne Condit's time to shine.

Left Central Add Alternet to the list of Web sites that is successfully challenging the media infotainment machine -- with a little help from George W. Bush. Since his election, traffic is up 500%.

Writer Eudora Welty, who died Monday at the age of 92, also left an Internet legacy. The designer of the e-mail program Eudora, said that he named it after her because he had been processing so much e-mail that he felt like the Welty character in "Why I Live at the P.O."

A libel case brought by Mexico's national bank claims that two journalists defamed one of its directors by fingering him as a cocaine trafficker. Free speech advocates are worried that because the case is being heard in New York, it could set a precedent allowing powerful corporations and individuals to harass Internet journalists with libel suits anywhere in the world.

British libel law and a gold mining company with close ties to George H. W. Bush conspire to muzzle muckraking journalist Greg Palast. Read Palast's investigative gem, "Bush family finances: Best Democracy money can buy."

Promising the World No longer competitive in a global marketplace, the lowly brand gives way to the MEGABRAND.

Muscovites find that drinking and dunking don't mix.

NPR's "On the Media" examines why the U.S. press is going soft on Henry Kissinger.

True Believer President Bush interrupts a sight-seeing tour of Rome to inform reporters: "I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe -- I believe what I believe is right."

Frank Rich on how America, summer of '01, was fated to become Condit Country, and Maureen Dowd on misanthropic Seinfeld creator Larry David, and his HBO show "Curb Your Enthusiasm," in which David plays himself, an out-of-work Seinfeld creator

Partly Cloudy A dispute over information erased from computers used in Katherine Harris' office during the Florida recount is testing the state's "Sunshine Laws."

Memo to the President: "We got ballot trouble in Florida boss."

The Wall Street Journal reports that the dinosaurs from "Jurassic Park III" are kicking down the wall separating editorial and advertising, as newspapers superimpose the silhouette of a flying pteranodon from the film over pages of stock quotes and weather reports.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest Hollings strikes fear into the hearts of conglomerators, by calling for an 18-month moratorium on the FCC's efforts to relax restrictions on media ownership.

A reporter soaks up the media feeding frenzy outside of Gary Condit's Wahington D.C. condo.

The 2001 Webby Award winners are announced.

Salon reports on the amazing disappearing book review section: "Enthralled by marketing surveys, the newspaper industry's managerial caste has decreed that readers want more space devoted to the Backstreet Boys than to books."

A "pool report" filed by the Washington Post's Dana Milbank "has raised eyebrows among Bushies," according to the National Review. "They think it drips with contempt for Bush, and shows the 'real Milbank,' an intelligent reporter but one singularly unimpressed with W."

Paper View The next phase in the evolution of online content is the digital delivery of newspapers. The New York Times, working with NewsStand Inc., plans to launch a paid edition later this year. If successful, it could mark the beginning of the end for full content on free Web sites.

Read about the industrial-type efficiency with which Venezuela turns out its most prized export -- beauty queens.

E.J. Dionne on dirty pool in Florida.

Take diarist Abraham Sutherland's taxicab tour of L.A.

Spend a night on the town with a team of bar shills from undercover marketer Big Fat Inc., as they try to build buzz, one drink at a time.

Ballot Pox A new study finds that four to six percent of the 100 million votes cast in the 2000 election were not counted, a figure that is at least twice as high as an earlier estimate.

Search and Deceive Ralph Nader's Commercial Alert has filed a complaint with the FTC, asking it to investigate whether eight of the Web's largest search engines are violating federal laws against deceptive advertising by concealing the impact that special fees have on search results.

With the release of "Tina and Harry Come to America," a biography that roughs up "the media world's Über-power couple," Michael Wolff analyzes the Tina Brown backlash and the trap that she finds herself in: "We are enamored by her because she was such a success; we are repelled by her because of what it took to be a success."

Supplying Demand In an ingenuous attempt to expand market share, the manufacturer of the antidepressant Paxil spent millions to publicize a little known malady called "social anxiety disorder." The PR campaign created the impression that this debilitating form of bashfulness was extremely widespread, but easily treatable--with Paxil!

The launch of Celexa, an antidepressant similar to Paxil, offers a fascinating look at the hard sell that pharmaceutical companies put on physicians.

An eye-opening new report by Families USA finds that pharmaceutical industry spending on research and development of new drugs -- the justification for high and increasing prices -- pales in comparison to marketing expenditures and CEO salaries.

Just Say Blow In April, the Bush administration announced that it will deny financial aid to students who fail to answer a question asking if they have ever been convicted of possessing or selling drugs. Now, Students for a Drug-Free White House is asking President Bush to forego his salary until he comes clean with his own drug past.

Different Story, Same Players Talking heads and attorneys who fueled the content machine during the Monica Lewinsky scandal have found new work stage-managing the Chandra Levy spectacle. Says one: "Once you've gained expertise in a subject like this, you can be sure your services will be used over and over in Washington."

"Official spokesperson" may be one of the world's fastest growing postmodern vocations. Even spokespeople have them!

Inserting virtual ads into televised sporting events is becoming commonplace. This year's Indy 500 included "giant virtual billboards," while ESPN Classics drops new ads into old games. Facilitating the deception is an outfit called Princeton Video Image, "The worldwide leader in virtual advertising and imaging solutions."

During the Florida recount, Bush operatives gained a major PR victory when Democrats challenged overseas absentee ballots. Now, a New York Times investigation finds that Republicans operated under the media radar with a more effective, two-pronged strategy -- pressuring Florida officials to discard "illegal" civilian votes that they assumed would be for Gore, while defending equally defective military ballots. The Times found 680 questionable votes, 80% of which were in counties carried by Bush.

Eric Alterman writes that "the Times has done a journalistic service in forcing us, once again, to face up to an ugly, but increasingly incontrovertible fact: The 2000 election was stolen; not from the hapless Gore and Lieberman ticket, but from the democratic process itself. We are all the poorer for it."

The Los Angeles Times piles on, reporting that Florida Republicans may have broken the law by superimposing Governor Jeb Bush over the state seal in an absentee voting pitch. The Times also examines Bush's phone records and concludes that despite his recusal, "it appears that Jeb Bush was more involved in the recount than he has publicly acknowledged."

More evidence that "the opinion that's on TV starts from the center and leans to the right."

Trading cards have taken a turn to the right, but with a psychedelic twist.

The sweet life of soft money.

You've Got Britney! "AOL seems to consider itself a sober news organization," writes Brendan Koerner in The Washington Monthly, but its celebrity-oriented drivel and trifling service pieces make it seem like "little more than an online amalgam of Entertainment Weekly and The Montel Williams Show."

What's a spinmeister to do when the "crisis consultants" become the crisis?

Read an interview with self-proclaimed "full time son of a bitch" Joe Queenan, and find out why the downfall of the baby boomers -- the subject of his latest book -- can be traced to April 21, 1971, the date Carole King's "Tapestry" album was released.

e's Not a Book! Authors are handed a victory by a federal judge who rules that a contract to publish "in book form" doesn't automatically include electronic books.

The Bush administration now admits that Karl Rove met with a Salvation Army lobbyist. The SA Web site fails to mention the growing controversy, but does feature some surprisingly scantily-clad models.

The Salvation Army weaves an anti-gay Web.

NASCAR and Fox's "America's Most Wanted" teamed up for a cross-promotion featuring a Chandra Levy bumpersticker, after the TV show approached a racing team "to get publicity for the show and the search for Levy." The AMW segment on Levy, which coincidentally ran the night of the race, was promoted on Fox's Web site, next to a blurb for upcoming NASCAR coverage.

The Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly -- who criticized CBS for the restraint it has shown in the Levy story -- claims to be a journalist in an interview with media critic Mark Crispin Miller.

Cronies or Criminals? Read the transcript of a joint appearance by Alan Dershowitz and Vincent Bugliosi on Good Morning America, in which they aggresively argue that partisan politics outweighed legal principles in the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore decision.

In "The Perils of Covering Porn," Online Journalism Review reports on industry myths perpetuated by mainstream journalists.

Salon teases LAPD crackdown on "extreme" porn purveyor Seymore Butts. Don't miss this inspired animated attack on Butts that takes issue with his defense strategy.

Lord of the Fliers Walter Kirn's new novel chronicles one man's quest to accumulate a million frequent flier miles.

The House has moved to block DOE plans to shorten turnaround time for resuming nuclear tests in Nevada from three years to 18 months. The Guardian reports that it's part of a broad strategy by the Bush administration to free the U.S. from the constraints of a nuclear test moratorium and the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

Nevada recently commemorated the golden anniversary of becoming ground zero. In the 1950s it was kitschy fun, as Vegas' casinos threw "atomic cocktail" parties and crowned "Miss Atomic Bomb." Now, Downwinders and the Shundahai Network are already mobilizing against a possible return of testing to the state.

A resumption of testing could coincide with development of the "mini-nuke," a Sadaam-inspired low-yield nuclear bomb designed to knock out hardened or deeply buried targets such as leadership bunkers and command centers. The Senate approved a study of the "bunker buster" a year ago, with a report due this month.

The National Federation of Scientists calls the low-yield bombs -- which would be the first nukes developed in the U.S. since the 80s -- a technological impossibility and explains why.

The Ego Has Landed The New York Times profiles "me-zine" electronic publishers and finds that low overhead may be the surest route to (marginal) Internet profit, but only if one places no value on their time.

A defender of chain bookstores argues that bigger is better.

A CBS News producer on all-Chandra all-the-time: "It looks to me like this feeding frenzy of people who are excited that maybe he was involved in her murder. It feels like people are hoping, dreaming that it'll be a sensational story that will see them through the summer."

At the half-way point in the season, it's time for this year's media all-stars to take the (mostly center and right) field.

McBeef A high school student is disciplined for telling McDonald's representatives what he thinks of the company and its products during a job interviewing seminar.

Rushing the Web Has the Internet become talk radio for liberals?

Todd Gitlin reviews the reviewers, and reports that "the media elite are reviewing Henry Kissinger's latest tome with their usual fawning gullibility. Best not to mention those bony hands reaching out from the grave."

All Consuming Cheap cocaine has taken hold among Brazil's vast underclass, sparking a violent, slum-centered turf war among "cocaine commandos" trying to grow market share.

Although President Bush campaigned on unshakeable principles, criticizing his predecessor for being poll-driven, Frank Rich and Daniel Schorr write of the agility with which he has flip-flopped on major issues, regardless of how ardently they were originally espoused.

Concerning issues on which he is less malleable, Bush has recently threatened to go "back to Crawford," -- return to his Texas ranch after one-term -- unless he gets his way.

Someone's running the White House, but there's disagreement as to who that is.

Class Act Filmmaker Barbara Kopple, who has been dubbed "a poet of the proletariat" for her portrayal of workers in Harlan County, USA and American Dream, is now looking at how the other half lives, in The Hamptons Project.

Hampton's scenester mows down 16 with Mercedes SUV!

A company hired by the U.S. government to fly missions against coca and poppy growers and processors in Colombia may be involved in heroin smuggling.

Bunker Bunk In February, VP Cheney said: "The days of the 'war room' and the permanent campaign are over." Now, USA Today reports that observers from both parties say "the West Wing of the Bush White House is home to what may be the most sophisticated, hands-on political operation ever run out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave."

Read how Canadians get the last laugh when talking to Americans.

MSNBC.com's editor-in-chief discusses the business of Web news and what Salon must do to survive.

Writing in The American Prospect, Chris Mooney chronicles the coordinated effort to demonize Tom "Puff" Daschle since he became Majority Leader.

Cigarette advertising in alternative weeklies goes up in smoke.

Richard Cohen writes that an interview President Bush gave to Peggy Noonan reads as if Bush is "parodying a president returning from an overseas trip."

Don't expect to see Carlos Fuentes at the White House anytime soon.

The self-appointed "dean" of the Adult Webmaster School talks job security.

One more reason why too much O.J. is never enough.

American teens declare independence from historical facts.

A Nation of Man President Bush on what Independence Day means to him: "It means what these words say, for starters. The great inalienable rights of our country. We're blessed with such values in America. And I -- it's -- I'm a proud man to be the nation based upon such wonderful values."

The Newest News An AP story on Dick Cheney's first day back at work after receiving a pacemaker may have been pre-written and inadvertently posted at 1:26 am Monday, hours before Cheney made it into the office and before any of the morning's activities described in the piece took place.

Arianna doesn't believe Dick, and she may have good reason not to.

The Fox News Channel wants to have it both ways -- presenting itself to viewers as "fair and balanced," while trumpeting its appeal as a right-wing alternative to CNN. In a new study on Fox's editorial balance, FAIR reports, you decide. Of course, it's nothing we didn't already know.

Watching the watchers in Tampa.

Canada's National Post reports on how magazines, "those conduits of the entertainment industry," manufacture celebrity, American-style: "Waving their magic wand and making little Zsa Zsas out of wet behind the ears actors and actresses who have yet to see the release of their first decent film."

Molly Ivins on the hardball battle between Boise Cascade and the Rainforest Action Network.

Fidel Castro's recent fainting spell had the Miami Police Department on high alert.

The Bush administration looks for ways to spin its man to the center.

As Mexico's economy heads south, more illegal immigrants could be heading north.

Returning Crisis Publishers are seeing a double-digit increase in bookstore returns, getting one book back for every two shipped!

In the last month, judges in Argentina, France and Chile have attempted to get Henry Kissinger's testimony concerning South American death squad activity in the 1970s. A summons served on Kissinger at Paris' Ritz Hotel in late-May "set a new precedent in pursuing human rights abuses around the world," according to the Financial Times, and was front page news in Le Monde.

Christopher Hitchens questions the virtual blackout on this important story in the U.S. media: "They usually find the views of "Henry" to be worthy of respectful attention. I admit my own interest, but I still feel able to ask: By whose definition is Kissinger's moment at the Ritz not news?"

Marc Cooper, who was Salvador Allende's translator in the early 1970s, writes that the legal action initiated against Kissinger, along with recent developments in the Pinochet case, represent "a magical moment for human rights activists worldwide."

Sweet Deal Three months ago, Coca-Cola promised that it would stop hard-selling soft drinks to schools. Since then the company has made little progress, as both bottlers and schools are reluctant to give up the revenue.

To satisfy bottom-line demands, Viacom is pressuring CBS stations to deliver 50% profit margins. For Minnesota's WCCO-TV, that's five times what it was 12 years ago under independent ownership!

The station has been reduced to seeking government assistance for a new St. Paul bureau, promising that it "will cover, promote and serve the community better than any other Minnesota broadcaster." Promote?

Media insiders say CBS is wildly spinning ad sales figures.

A Gannett-owned newspaper in West Virginia forced a reporter to resign after he visited porn sites to research "mouse-trapping." He says the real reason he was asked to quit is his environmental stance: "I don't hesitate to call myself a tree-hugger.' And I am ruthless on the subject of coal companies.''

Is Anyone Listening? The Telecommunications Act of 1996, which unleashed unprecedented deregulation and media consolidation, was especially kind to a few companies that now control the radio airwaves. Eric Boehlert reports on how the television industry is positioning itself for a similar windfall.

Getting serious about what celebrities need from their real estate professional.

Extreme Opposition The Frontier Freedom Foundation, a front group for the tobacco, oil and timber industries, is lobbying the IRS to revoke the non-profit status of the Rainforest Action Network, while Boise Cascade takes on funders of the "environmental extremist group."

A Washington D.C. firm with close ties to the Bush administration is coming under fire in Montana for generating fake grassroots opinion in order to provide cover for supporters of energy deregulation.

Critics agree on this summer's must-read article!

Still Sorry Former American Spectator writer David Brock, who traded one career as a right-wing sleazemonger for another built on renouncing his vitriolic past, says he's sorry -- again. In an excerpt from his new book, "Blinded by the Right," Brock writes that he lied to protect Justice Clarence Thomas' reputation.

That lie was told in Brock's review of "Strange Justice," an account of the the Anita Hill/Thomas clash. At the time, FAIR questioned Brock's tactics in a critique of his review.

Check out the American Spectator's educational work.

Bad Behavior An 82-year-old Eugene attorney and former Congressman has launched a campaign to impeach the five Supreme Court justices who voted to stop the Florida recount.

For more on Eugene, read "Notes From Underground," a profile of the city's younger hellraisers.

ABC has agreed to remove footage involving kids who were interviewed for an upcoming environmental special, "Tampering With Nature," after parents complained that producers hid the identity of controversial host John Stossel, and that Stossel's questions "mislead the children to evoke the responses he wanted."

TV critic says, "Stossel oughta pick on kids his own size."

Stossel strikes back at "totalitarian left" critics.

Next Question Please After Henry Kissinger struck a deal with the National Press Club to ignore audience questions about war crimes accusations made against him, two journalists ask: "How can it be ethical to agree secretly with an author before hand not to ask a certain set of questions?"

Kissinger had successfully avoided engaging his accuser, Christopher Hitchens, until he made the mistake of referring to Hitchens as a "holocaust denier."

Hillbilly Heroin The Guardian's Julian Borger files from Justice, West Virginia, and reports on the holy hell that OxyContin abuse is visiting on rural communities.

The manufacturer responds to a lawswuit that WV has just filed, charging "coercive and deceptive" marketing to doctors. More Oxy? Read the Cincinnati Enquirer's "Oxycontin Pipeline."

How severe is our addiction to speed? MPR's Marketplace reports on the accelerating pace of everyday life.

The U.S. Supreme Court hands freelancers a victory, the Writers Union celebrates and big media says it will start deleting freelance articles from its databases.

Dying to Sell Frank Rich writes that the much-predicted "closure" from Timothy McVeigh's execution never materialized, leaving McVeigh and "his commercial sponsors who benefited from the pumped-up ratings of his final show" as the big winners.

Rich notes that Wal-Mart, which banned the sale of a journalistic book about McVeigh, anxiously hawked household goods to those watching the execution coverage.

Barbara Ehrenreich writes that "while it might be comforting to dismiss McVeigh as a maniacal, one-of-a-kind deviant, he was in fact, just a particularly apt student of the very government he hated."

Are the all-news cable channels a good case for modification or repeal of the First Amendment?

All Abhored Amtrak has a deal with the Drug Enforcement Administration, whereby the DEA uses information provided by the railroad to determine which passengers fit a "drug courier profile." In return, Amtrak gets a bounty of 10 percent of any "drug asset" seizures made on its trains.

Railroaders react to the railroading, while Amtrak tells riders it "respects your privacy."

Set-Top Surveillance The next big thing in demographic slicing and dicing could be "addressable advertising." Cable and satellite giants are installing technology that tracks viewers' habits, allowing them to send different ads to different households.

Time Warner is being sued for creating and selling profiles about its subscribers, including whether they buy premium channels such as HBO and Playboy.

To protest the "Disneyfying and dumbing down" of the Smithsonian Institution under Secretary Lawrence Small, disgruntled staffers have leaked a list of "Unit Naming Opportunities," an inventory of all the nooks and crannies that the museum could sell off to sponsors.

Gored Again With "absolutely no support within the Democratic Party" for another Al Gore presidential run, David Corn observes that if Gore decides to go for it, "The party would be disavowing the guy it claimed actually won the race. Talk about not standing by your man."

A New York Times profile of Fox News Channel includes Bill O'Reilly's unique assessment of why Gore lost: "If Al Gore had appeared on 'The Factor,' he'd be president of the United States."

A Freeper convention flops when advertised appearances by Judge Sanders Sauls and Katherine Harris fall through. Wanna get Freeped out? Read "God Sees the Freepers": Part 1 and Part 2.

Polling Place Candidate George W. Bush promised that his presidency wouldn't be a hostage to the polls, but the current administration is turning out to be just as poll-driven as its predecessor.

Marie Coco writes that you can bank on the ethics of the Bush administration, while Joshua Micah Marshall suggests that it's makeover time for the word "scandal."

India Calling Indiana When people are waking up in the U.S., it's 9 p.m in Bangalore, where an army of Indian telemarketers, with adopted American names, begins dialing for dollars. It's the latest offshore trend, helping U.S. firms drive down labor costs and reduce turnover. Whither Omaha?

A Good Run It appears that for the first time in 26 years, fuel economy standards for SUVs, minivans and other light trucks will be tightened. A legacy of the auto industry's quarter century of lobbying succces, is that the gas guzzlers now account for nearly half of all passenger vehicles sold in the U.S.

Is the Bush administration feeling the heat?

As newspapers cut back book review sections in response to higher newsprint costs and less advertising, what's going to happen to the out-of-work book reviewers?

The Wall Street Journal makes a big mistake. (last item)

In arguing against further gutting of media ownership restrictions, senators Hollings and Dorgan point out that "Prior to the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the top radio station group owned 39 stations. Today the top group owns more than 1,100 stations."

Chuck Palahniuk insists that his novels about sexual deviants, con artists, lost revolutionaries drug addicts, anti-consumerists and cynics are really romantic comedies, "but they're just romantic comedies that are done with very dysfunctional, dark characters."

Does U.S. Rep. Bob Barr eat with that mouth?

Christopher Hitchens makes Page Six, threatening to sue Henry Kissinger for calling him a holocaust denier. Hitchen's two-parter in Harper's, calling Kissinger a war criminal, can be read here, and here. Or read about it in this forum moderated by Lewis Lapham.

Although Harper's is notoriously stingy about putting its content online, you can find hundreds of the magazine's articles right here, including a must-read history of George W. Bush's business career.

Slate's Timothy Noah explains why there was no price to pay when Karl Rove became the first Bush administration official caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Joe Conason imagines "the thermonuclear blast of outrage that would have consumed George Stephanopoulos or John Podesta if they had ever done what Karl Rove admittedly did."

In a rare interview, Norman Mailer talks about his colorful career as a literary enfant terrible, the parallels between boxing and writing, common ground between Jesus and Marx, and why politics has gotten so ugly.

A former CBS and ABC news correspondent debunks the myth of liberal bias at PBS, by revealing the network's hidden ties to conservative foundations that fund ideologically-driven programming. Could this be behind PBS' declining subscription rates?

Parody Capital E.J. Dionne writes that Washington D.C. is the city that makes fun of itself.

FAIR wants to know why the mainstream media failed to take notice when Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill advocated eliminating the corporate income tax and questioned the need for Social Security and Medicare in an interview with the Financial Times, which described his comments as "political dynamite."

The DNC's "Stock Tracker" has been keeping tabs on the increasing value of O'Neill's 2.3 million shares of Alcoa, which he finally unloaded almost three months after reluctantly agreeing to sell.

Big Meth Lab CO2 may be the most well-known villian of global warming, but methane gas is lurking beneath the surface. "The Day the Oceans Boiled," a new documentary, details how massive releases of methane emissions, triggered by man-made global warming, could propel earth's ecological systems towards catastrophe.

Shifting the global warming debate from !!! to ???

Good Money After Bad Salon's David Talbot has floated the idea of moving to a subscriber-only model, but a critic dismisses the sites current pay offerings: "'Bushed!', no ads and dirty pictures, I don't know if that's enough."

Larry King and Don Imus get what they deserve -- each other! Tompaine.com indexes the I-Man's racial slurs.

Read an excerpt from Alan Dershowitz's "Supreme Injustice," and a call to "Freep Dershowitz's book on Amazon."

If you're still in a sunshine state of mind, read Vincent Bugliosi's "None Dare Call it Treason," which was recently published in paperback as "The Betrayal of America."

Read a Q & A with Bugliosi, who, in spite of his book's bestseller status, says that "For the first time in my literary career I've not appeared on any of the morning talk shows. Their response to my publicist was that the election is over with, and we're not covering the matter any further."

Resume Builder The Boston Globe reports that eight lawyers who worked on Clinton scandals or the Florida recount have already been picked for high-level jobs in the Bush administration.

A Not So Nutty Idea A neurologist says it's time to find out if Tony Blair is bonkers, Jacques Chirac is cuckoo or George Bush is batty: "Pilots of airliners are in charge of a few hundred passengers, and we monitor their mental health in the most detailed way. By contrast, politicians control the lives of millions, but we let them run around without any form of psychological profiling."

Chris Matthews' and Bill O'Reilly's culturally-based working-class shtick is becoming the "reigning ideological stance on the political talk-show circuit."

Dirty Business? The Consortium's Robert Parry wants to know the story behind a "peculiar" entry on Bush's pre-presidential travel resume -- a "business" trip to Guatemala.

Following its fake movie critic scandal, Sony admits to using employees as bogus fans in testimonial commercials.

The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, whose goal is a memorial in each of the country's 3,067 counties, is meeting opposition from liberals and even some conservatives.

Softer, Yet Harder Editors at news weeklies try to have it both ways.

A network news veteran says that the network newscasts seem almost ashamed to be in the hard news business, while local newscasts run a race to the bottom.

A circulation guru calls the magazine distribution business "something out of the Middle Ages." Nearly two out of every three magazines sent to newsstands are recycled after being returned unsold.

William Saletan employs Charles Darwin to explain what doomed Al Gore: "Just as Clinton had no record of avoiding jams, Gore had no record of escaping them. Gore died a Darwinian death: He was put in a jam by Clinton and couldn't get out."

A Taxing Question Is Bill Clinton an entertainer or a statesman?

A profile of New York Times Magazine editor Adam Moss asks: "In a town lousy with celebrity editors, why isn't this man famous?" It's because Moss is less interested in boosting himself than his product, which "ignores the flashy trends infecting the U.S. magazine industry and focuses on the main reason people pick up a magazine: the content."

The Angry White Male Tour, featuring Answer Me's Jim Goad, promised to raise provocative questions about racial and gender taboos in America, and then, something happened. Read a review of Goad's "The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats."

A service designed to help journalists anonymously find sources, inadvertently left databases of requests available publicly, making them easily accessible through Google.

In excoriating CNN for its wall-to-wall coverage of the McVeigh execution, Michael Ryan writes that "there isn't enough news in this country to fill twenty-four hours a day, every day; there is only metanews -- the carnival folderol and pseudo thought that cable channels use to eat up their time."

Enough Already Last year President Clinton designated June "Gay and Lesbian Pride Month." This year conservative groups are applauding President Bush's decision to "quietly" discontinue it.

Abduction Lingo Kidnapping is so widespread in Mexico that it has a vocabulary all its own.

Clean-Up Time Almost one year after a listener complaint was filed, the FCC has fined a Colorado Springs radio station $7,000 for airing the "clean" version of Eminem's "The Real Slim Shady."

Writing in The New Yorker, Ian Frazier traces the history of the sound bite.

It's hard times for hard copy, as a landmark newsstand specializing in out-of-town newspapers tries to weather a 50% drop in sales.

The Sweaties Wal-Mart, Disney and Nike are among the nominees for the "Sweatshop Retailer of the Year" award.

Flow-Up Economics Columnist Geneva Overholser writes that tackling issues concerning poverty or the widening gap between rich and poor guarantees her "a spate of messages setting forth the great American illusion that wealth flows to the worthy."

A study by the Citizens for Tax Justice finds that under the new tax law, 26% of U.S. adults will receive no rebate this year and an additional 13% will get less than the oft-cited amounts of $300 and $600.

You've Got Jail! Imagining a U.S. presidential debate among media moguls.

Charlotte voters rejected a $342 million package that included financing for a new sports arena, in spite of a corporate full-court press that included local media. TV reporters at one station claim that management instructed them to put "a positive spin" on stories involving the referendum.

Why subsidies for sports stadiums is the great American scam.

After using its news division to pimp Survivor, CBS is now crying foul, accusing NBC of overplaying coverage of a lawsuit filed by a Survivor contestant against the show's producer.

Bill McKibben reports on an anti-SUV rally in Boston that was joined by local religious leaders, one bearing a sign that read "What Would Jesus Drive?" Ford and GM warned area dealerships in advance, allowing them to move SUVs to the back lot and put smaller models in front.

Jeremy Rifkin, author of "The Age of Access," writes in The Guardian that global media giants are quietly lobbying the Bush administration for "the most sinister privatization" of all: turning our airwaves into "private electronic real estate."

Automatic Media has shuttered two of the Web's premier content sites, Feed and Suck, laying off all 21 employees. Plastic.com, the company's recently launched "para-site," will continue to operate thanks to the unpaid efforts (sounds familiar!) of its two editors.

Frank Rich writes that the real story of the White House thus far is the arrogance of the former CEOs who run it: "The administration proceeds on the belief that no one would possibly question its wisdom and that anything can be sold with the proper marketing strategy and enough repetition of an unvarying script."

A media critic wonders why TV reporters are so tight-lipped when it's their turn to be quoted: "Hearing a journalist offer a blanket 'no comment' is kind of like finding a guy from Hertz at your door demanding to borrow your Toyota for the week without paying for the privilege."

In The Bush Dyslexicon, Mark Crispin Miller faults the mainstream press for having "forgotten the differences between what's on TV and (what we might call) reality. Instead of interrogating the photo op, asking how it's fiddling with the truth, journalists actively collaborate with those who set the picture up, so as to help the audience discern the proper 'theme.'"

Read an interview with Miller, the introduction and an excerpt from The Bush Dyslexicon, and a collaborative interview with George W. Bush that Miller cites in his book.

Revenge-minded Bush supporters have launched a campaign to villify the bar manager at Chuy's restaurant, calling for her to be "publicly humiliated, fi