Wednesday, August 02, 2017

In Media Life is Even Shorter Than Varhola's 15 Minutes of Fame

            You haven’t had the blues
            Until your brother drunk-dials
            Your number at two o’clock
            In the afternoon and leaves
            A message for your sister
            Who’s been dead since ...


Here’s How The Internet’s Culture Wars (And Memes) Led To This Presidency…

Varhola's village ...

  Los Angeles Review of Books 
The so-called "alt-right" didn't go for National Review style (not in any way). Instead, "they have adopted the fetishism of transgression that marked the Cultural Studies left: they embedded themselves in subcultural styles repellent to mainstream, middlebrow liberal sensibilities and they call on their armies to attack the tastes and sensibilities embodied by n00bs and 'normies.'" … [Read More]


As Iowahawk likes to say, “Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving"

 ICAC to release long-awaited report on Australian Water Holdings

 Fortuneteller Pera Credlin on the Forthcoming Destiny of PM

Service reputations in an age of unreasonable expectations. It took just minutes of downtime for Game of Thrones fans to sink a provider's brand. Budget, Census and tax time are now also in the primetime hot seat 

In everyone’s life there are moments when unexpectedly, for no apparent reason, a door that has been shut suddenly cracks open, a trellised window, only just lowered, goes up, a sharp, seemingly final ‘no’ becomes a perhaps’, and in that second the world around us is transformed and we ourselves are filled, transfused, with hopes.
He’s spent nearly 7 decades at The San Francisco Chronicle. This year, at 98, he’s retiring.

 Another MEdia Dragon veteran and recycled teenager - Chicago journalist is using an email ‘newscast’ to keep people informed
Google’s chief search engineer legitimizes new censorship algorithm WSWS. Over the transom via email, we get this handy chart of the sites censored by Google:

China markets in everything Bob Dylan potato chips.
Signs of Australia 


Disney’s films at the cinema, Disney can now watch you Quartz. It’s enough to make me want to don a mask the next time I go to the cinema. Guy Fawkes? King Kong? Groucho Marx? Yogi Berra?

Private Equity Firms Sued Over Retailer Bankruptcies

Private equity is getting more critical coverage and legal pushback, as it wrecks yet more companies



The Story Of A Songwriter Who Kept Some Songs For Herself 


 Julia Michaels, who has written hit songs for Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, and Selena Gomez, says it was time for her to sing one of her own songs. "Shelly Peiken, who's a really incredible songwriter, used to say 'dare to suck.' You never know what people's reactions are going to be, so you've got to take chances." … [Read More]



Congressional aides suspected of criminally misusing their access to House computer systems owed $100,000 to an Iraqi politician who is wanted by U.S. authorities and has been linked to Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Middle Eastern terrorist outfit. 
Imran Awan and four of his relatives were employed as information technology (IT) aides by dozens of House Democrats, including members of the intelligence, foreign affairs and homeland security committees. The aides’ administrator-level IT access was terminated earlier this month amid a criminal probe by U.S. Capitol Police of a suspected security breach, including an off-site server housing congressional data.
The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has reported that while working for Congress, the Pakistani brothers controlled a limited liability corporation called Cars International A (CIA), a car dealership with odd finances, which took–and was unable to repay–a $100,000 loan from Dr. Ali Al-Attar.
The new monopolies The Week 

“Fake news” has been in highlighted recently, now there has been a research study looking at the topic. I think the title of the report is very descriptive - “Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation.”  More information can be found in this article;


Spreading fake news becomes standard practice for governments across the world.

How Jared Kushner Helped the Russians Get Inside Access to the Trump Campaign The New Yorker. Ryan Lizza retails the intelligence community’s perspective.

 Scientists have examined the business instincts of Amazon's Jeff Bezos, the creative ideas of Apple's Steve Jobs, the insights of the Dalai Lama, the endurance of Ironman Trevor Hendy and the strategy of chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen  (to boot, the daily doze of MEdia Dragon) to come up with a winning formula to become a better leader. But they warn that you will have to pick the style that suits you best. The group of Australian scientists have stepped into the enigmatic world of executive coaching to analyse more than 1000 academic articles and map the psychological, biological and brain patterns of the world's most successful people, including Carlsen, cellist and child prodigy Yo-Yo Ma and the formerly imprisoned journalist Peter Greste
How to lead like Jeff Bezos and think like Steve Jobs

Cheers for McCain, then a speech like impassioned prophet WaPo. “The speech Tuesday received a standing ovation.”

 McCain pillories ‘bombastic loudmouths’ in the media during dramatic return
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