10tonfunk

Actually, what I suspect happened is that an editor walked into a meeting at the beginning of September and said, “Alrighty: the dudes of the week, improbably enough, are Jimmy Carter, Sly Stallone, and Kim Jong-il. One of you lucky suckers is going to get to write a cover story that somehow links the three together.”

Zhang Yue (张悦) got the job, and did an admirable job of uniting this terrible trinity in an article entitled: “Kim Jong-il, Carter, Stallone: Old Men Who Haven’t Yet Responded to Their Curtain Call” (金正日，卡特，史泰龙：老男人未到谢幕时). Opening with a commentary on Hollywood (“Be careful, we’re being haunted by old guys”), the intro gives several examples of the staying power, so to speak, of old men in Hollywood, Cantopop, and global politics.

In addition to the aforementioned “old warhorses that cherish further exploits” (老骥伏枥), the author points out that Deng Xiaoping was already way past retirement age (mid-70s) when he launched reform and opening. When Deng became the first Chinese leader to visit the US in 1979, Prez Jimmy Carter ...read more

Juan Williams got fired from NPR this week (or so) for saying some stupid things. Now I’d like to see more people get the ax for saying stupid things on Fox, but most of them are actual Fox employees. This incident has a lot of implications for journalists and analysts (what Williams did for NPR, although Fox viewers wouldn’t know that, NPR had previously asked him not to identify himself as such when he appeared on the channel) who have a much more public role now, appearing on radio programs, TV shows, and having to blog and podcast. There’s also the whole issue of “liberals” having no spine whatsoever, but I’ve harped on that before and will give it a rest here. (Although the pathetic Shirley Sherrod incident should’ve made clear the problem with immediate firings.) ...read more

If you’re still aroused by Twitter’s revolutionary potential you might be…

There’ve been a lot of responses written to Malcolm Gladwell’s piece in The New Yorker about Twitter and revolution, “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted.” Read it if you haven’t, it’s short. These responses by Amy Chang and Alexis Madrigal add to the discussion. Read them too. As I’ve been critical of social media evangelism for some time now, I’m happy to see this piece. Social media is indeed doing incredible things, beyond just giving Justin Timberlake a chance to shine as an actor, but the converts to it, like all converts, have gone overboard about it’s ability to affect massive societal change.  But I promised to keep this quick. These are musings, not finished thoughts. Sound off in the comments if ...read more