Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 942

Climate Denialists Stop This Whole 'Science Laureate' Nonsense in Its Tracks

Science: most people like it, now with an emphasis on most. On Tuesday, a bill that would have created an honorary (i.e. unpaid) American Science Laureate position to "travel around the country to inspire future scientists" was sent packing by House Republicans after an influential conservative organization lost their minds over it and wrote a bunch of angry letters. Their reason for opposing the measure? Obviously, that would be the vast liberal conspiracy to promote policies based on the extensive scientific evidence of climate change. 

In a letter to House leadership, Science reported on Friday, Larry Hart of the American Conservative Union wrote that an Obama-appointed Science Laureate would give the president a yes man of sorts on environmental policy, someone “who will share his view that science should serve political ends, on such issues as climate change and regulation of greenhouse gases." It seems this is a fear injected into the House by Hart himself, as the previously uncontroversial bill had broad bipartisan support,
    

'In Utero' at 20: What We're Saying Now and What We Said Then

In Utero, Nirvana's unflinchingly brutal final statement, turns 20 today, and the Internet is fittingly aflutter with praise, reminiscences, and tributes for Kurt's Last Stand.

From Billboard, we get a track-by-track overview of what is perhaps the most abrasive animal ever to arrive on a Geffen subsidiary label; from NME, a slideshow of things you didn't know about the record (warning: you might know them). MySpace goes all out by getting a gang of music writers to pen 12 short stories inspired by each of the album's songs—"Rape Me," "Heart-Shaped Box," and "All Apologies" are the ones you'll recognize—while Rolling Stone has already managed to get touring guitarist Pat Smear to reflect on the band's final year. MTV argues that no band could pull it off today, though that's not really true—they'd just post it for free on BandCamp or whatever and let fans sift through the fuzz.

[image error]Which is to say that In Utero is rather a strange album to pay tribute to and an even stranger one to love, given that, by most accounts, Cobain wanted us all to hate it. Or, at the very least, not play it on the radio. This was the one Big Uncompromising Statement to blast a hole in Nevermind's radio-ready veneer—the one where they hired Electrical Audio maestro Steve Albini to dial back the pop sheen, the one that Cobain wanted to title I Hate Myself and Want to Die before realizing that wasn't the best idea, the one whose second single finds the frontman yowling "Rape me! Rape me!" over and over in a blistering scream. "The grown-ups don't like it," Cobain bragged shortly before the release, but wasn't that the point? As a 1993 Chicago Tribune article lightly phrased matters:

The members of Nirvana—Kurt Cobain, Chris Novoselic and David Grohl—"were ecstatic about the record," Albini said. "But every person they work for tells them it's terrible."

Today, critics are fawning over the record's bravery and its harrowing pull, using adjectives like "classic" and "seminal," and for good reason—this is powerful stuff, a fitting swan song for the songwriter who took "It's better to burn out than to fade away" all too literally. And much of it isn't close to "unlistenable," especially the melodic turns ("Heart-Shaped Box," "All Apologies"); "Dumb" is positively tender. But in 1993? Reviewers weren't so sure. Writing for NME, John Mulvey recognized the nature of the beast, but wasn't sure it measured up:

But Nirvana's great virtue has always been their capacity to make music that, through unavoidable pop drive, transcends alternative rock stereotypes. Here, Kurt seems embarrassed of that. These songs are the product of a scowling spoilt brat re-asserting his right to be antagonistic and difficult once he's shown his audience how clever he is. [ . . . ] As a follow-up to one of the best records of the past ten years it just isn't quite there.

[image error]In Entertainment Weekly, David Browne was similarly suspicious and employed the term "gaseous aftertaste," which makes you wonder if he's writing about an album or a bottle of wine:

The gripping ''Rape Me'' opens with the chords of ''Teen Spirit''—intentional, one hopes—and builds into a furious rant with lyrics as dumb as anything on a death-metal anthem (''My favorite inside source/I'll kiss your open sores''). All of this is more articulate than any Soundgarden lyric, but too often, Cobain just comes off sounding petulant. That hostility leaves In Utero with a gaseous aftertaste.

Rolling Stone's David Fricke, though, embraced the fury of it all:

In Utero is a lot of things—brilliant, corrosive, enraged and thoughtful, most of them all at once. But more than anything, it's a triumph of the will.

...while TIME's Christopher John Farley warned that "Rape Me" would be misinterpreted by "beer-blown frat boys" and offered instructions for locating melodies amidst the hoarse-voiced rubble:

[...] many of the Albini pieces sound ravaged, almost ruined; but as with buried treasures, there are rewards for persistence and exploration. If you listen repeatedly to such sonically explosive songs as Serve the Servants and Pennyroyal Tea, the structure of each gradually becomes clear, and melodies surface.

Looks like we've finally parsed them. The deluxe reissue of In Utero is out later this month, and you have to wonder what the self-loathing Cobain would make of all this appreciation and pomp. 

But then, it's all too clear he never intended to stick around for it. As he screams in the caustic "Scentless Apprentice," "You can't fire me 'cuz I quit." "Petulant," indeed—or maybe just depressed.

Band photos: Associated Press.

       

In Defense of Tina Brown

Do you see that headline? It's written in earnest. So stop gloating about the demise of Tina Brown, who has effectively been fired as the editor of The Daily Beast. If she has failed, then all of us in the media have. Or will. It's just a matter of time.

I am talking to you, Michael Wolff ("This may be the last time I ever write about Tina Brown") and to all the people sniping on Twitter about how she deserved a comeuppance or those, as paidContent put it, who think The Daily Beast "never really seemed to get it."

I'm less sure of that (disclosure: I've reviewed books for The Beast). She had the big names (Christopher Buckley, Tunku Varadarajan, Eli Lake), buzz, and some 15 million visitors per month. Smart people writing things that many people want to read and talk about. Isn't that exactly what we want journalism to be? Should that be the goal as much in 2013 as it was thirty years ago, when the young Tatler editor was brought to New York to run Vanity Fair?

Her formula hasn't changed much since then, earning her the appellation "Queen of Buzz." Which is exactly what she was. When she arrived at Vanity Fair in 1983, it was a moribund affair. She made is sparkle, filling pages with photographs by Annie Liebovitz and Helmut Newton. And those who think she is merely after buzz might want to recall that William Styron's Darkness Visible, easily his finest work and, to this day, our finest memoir of depression, was first printed in its pages by Brown in 1986.

The conventional wisdom today is that the buzz has buzzed right past Brown to places like BuzzFeed. If all we want is cat listicles, then maybe so. But that kind of buzz can easily be dismissed. Far more serious and relevant was the kind of buzz Brown generated — for example, with Dominick Dunne, whom she first hired at Vanity Fair to report on his daughter's murder — for the stories she commissioned. Come to think of it, that might best be called conversation.

At The New Yorker, she essentially performed a blood transfusion, replacing an old guard with young writers. Did she ruin the magazine or dumb it down? Plenty said so. But if those critics were correct, the magazine is as ruined and dumb today as when she was there. As Choire Sicha, who penned Brown's professional obit, wrote back in 2007, "Fifteen years after she was appointed, nearly nine years after she departed, the majority of the work at the New Yorker is done by the people hired and promoted by Tina Brown." That post, for Gawker, was called "David Remnick's New Yorker Is Tina Brown's," alluding to the fact that she had hired its current editor. And, also, Rick Hertzberg, who would credit her with "saving" the magazine. From investigative reporter Jane Mayer to resident pop-sci contrarian Malcolm Gladwell to brilliant film critic Anthony Lane to foreign correspondent Philip Gourevitch, all are Brown hires.

And yet none of this has earned her adoration; it has not made her an emblem of the golden age of longform journalism that gets regular praise from exactly the crowd that dismisses Brown as a hack or fraud. That's surely in part because she is a woman and a Brit, because she is wealthy and famous and unashamed of either. A paratrooper dropped deep into Condé Nast territory, she has always styled herself a stranger in the clubby world of Manhattan magazine journalism, where whom you know is often more important than what you write. The irony of her career is that the native Briton's unabashed ambition is the most American thing about her. It is also what has made her American peers distrust her. Brown is all things to the people who care about literary nonfiction: simultaneously a patron and an executioner.

Of course, that has little to do with what happened between Brown and Barry Diller and whatever faces The Daily Beast. Maybe we will find out in her memoir, should she be in a score-settling mood.

"Tina Brown Loses Her Magic Spell," says a headline in The New York Observer, with sources complaining that "she puts everybody...through hell." That was fourteen years ago, by the way. There may have never been any magic. Rather, it may have been just a knack for finding the right people for the right stories. That's simply editing talent.

       

It's Official: Every Branch of Government Endorses Debate over NSA Surveillance

In an opinion released on Friday, the secret court that authorizes NSA surveillance ordered certain decisions be declassified in order to "contribute to an informed debate." Which makes it all but official: everyone agrees the Edward Snowden leaks were useful.

The court — officially, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — released its decision in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU. They pertain to Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the section of the legislation used to authorize the bulk collection of telephone metadata records. That collection was one of the first Snowden revelations in early June, and has subsequently come under heavy attack on Capitol Hill. The FISC gave the government until October 4 to release (after redactions) a large subset of the court's decisions related to the records collection.

But it's the rationale the court offered that's interesting.

The unauthorized disclosure in June 2013 of a Section 215 order, and government statements in response to that disclosure, have engendered considerable public interest and debate about Section 215. Publication of FISC opinions relating to this provision would contribute to an informed debate.

In other words: This is a debate worth having. And so the court joins a growing list of perhaps-unexpected parties that have expressed appreciation for the debate that Snowden kicked off.

President Obama

When that first Snowden leak occurred, the White House was quick to "welcome" the debate that might ensue. Of course, the administration couldn't yet predict its scale. During his press conference at the beginning of last month, Obama again acknowledged the value of the conversation, even as he struggled to contain the fall-out.

American leadership around the world depends upon the example of American democracy and American openness, because what makes us different from other countries is not simply our ability to secure our nation; it's the way we do it, with open debate and democratic process.

That he hadn't intended to have that debate is beside the point. Obama, however sincerely, had to admit that it was of value.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper

Speaking before a trade group on Thursday, the man primarily responsible for implementing the surveillance programs acknowledged the value of the pressure he's faced. The Los Angeles Times reports:

"I think it's clear that some of the conversations this has generated, some of the debate, actually needed to happen," Clapper told a defense and intelligence contractor trade group. "If there's a good side to this, maybe that's it."

Maybe!

Congress

A number of members of Congress have praised the debate, several of whom (like Ron Wyden of Oregon) tried to have a muffled debate while the legislature was considering their renewal.

But the most obvious demonstration of Congress' enthusiasm about the debate is that Congress is actually introducing and debating amendments to the legislation used to authorize the surveillance. In July, the House came uncomfortably close to revoking funding for the Section 215 data collection after an extended period of, yes, debate.

Meaning that debate has been embraced by all three branches of government, all three overseers of the NSA's programs — judicial, executive, and legislative. Good thing, too, given that the release of the FISC's rulings and any future reports on the Snowden documents ensure that the debate will continue for some time to come.

       

Let's Honor the 20th Anniversary of 'Animaniacs'

We realize there's only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cellphone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why, every day, The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:

Animaniacs is 20, y'all. Today's anniversary is a cruel reminder of the specter of mortality that haunts all of us. To get your mind off of that, here's the first episode of the show:

It's also Friday the 13th, which means it's prime time for pranks. Here's one you probably shouldn't be trying at home: 

Whoever this man is, here, take our money: 

And, finally: the weekend to Atlantic Wire staffers is basically like a distressed raccoon call is to this dog:

       

Pax Dickinson Thinks His Critics Should Just Get to Know Him Better

It's been a hard week for brogrammers, especially if your name is Pax Dickinson. Days after a popular presentation at TechCrunch's Disrupt Hackathon drew ire for its humor at the expense of women, Dickinson lost his job at Business Insider for a years-long habit of tweeting out jokes demeaning women, minorities, and more or less anyone who wasn't a similar-thinking white guy like Dickinson himself. In an interview with New York's Daily Intel, Dickinson took another shot at explaining himself. 

Repeatedly, Dickinson explains that his critics don't understand his brand of humor, or him, or his much-mocked "brogrammer" twitter avatar. "Yeah, I have a brogrammer photo on my Twitter — that’s a joke man, come on. I don’t pop my collar! Like, this is so silly," he said. "I’m not even — I’m a nerd!" he added. And that's probably true, as it is for most who would fall under the now pejorative brogrammer label, which actually refers more to actions and privilege than to a sense of style. Ann Friedman's excellent column, also for New York, explains: "'bro' conjures a particular type of dude who operates socially by excluding those who are different. And, crucially, a bro in isolation is barely a bro at all — he needs his peers to reinforce his beliefs and laugh at his jokes," she writes, adding: "Because he’s used to enjoying a certain amount of financial and cultural privilege, he takes up a lot of space." Under that definition — which we would posit is the one intended by most of the pieces critical of brogramming culture, Dickinson seems to be the dictionary example. 

On that note, here is his answer on whether tech has a women problem, something his critics have accused him of perpetuating: 

I think the tech world is just kind of — it doesn’t have a woman problem. Women in tech are great. There's just not that many of them because tech is just a kind of thing that a lot of women aren’t that interested in, I think. I mean, I don't think it has a problem. I'd worry more about taking away what makes tech great. The freewheeling nature of it is what leads to innovation. And my fear is that if we’re all going to police what we say, maybe we lose that innovation. 

And, similarly, his thoughts on his controversy sibling this week, Titstare: 

Titstare is crass and sexist and stupid, but it’s not misogyny. Real misogyny is, you know, hatred of women and violence against women and all that. Those are terrible things, but let’s not devalue those things, let’s not make those things, let’s not trivialize them by using the same words for things like Titstare. I mean, Titstare is harmless. It’s crass, but it’s harmless. but men need to be more careful.

One thing becomes clear in Dickinson's responses to the controversy that rose up around him: at best, he doesn't understand why his brand of humor drew so much exasperation and criticism. At worst, he doesn't care. And it doesn't look like Dickinson is alone in that regard. While sexism in tech is having something of a moment this week, it's been well-documented, reported, and criticized for a long time. And every time it happens, the tech world seems to bounce back, as bro-y and homogenous as it ever was. Dickinson's responses echo the pushback of many from inside the brogrammosphere on this week's stories of sexism in the industry. Brogrammers, many of whom understand after the fact that Titstare was inappropriate, simultaneously assume that they have the privilege of deciding why, and to what degree, on behalf of the women it frustrated. 

That pushback places the two driving forces of this debate in tension: freedom of speech, and sexist or otherwise exclusionary speech, but only from the perspective of the bros in charge. As we've explained before, the first is often used to excuse the second in the tech world. And yet, an environment in which harassing, sexist, or demeaning speech or actions are allowed without consequence, all under the excuse of innovation, the speech of those outside of the central affinity group of bros in charge are constantly policed, sometimes into silence, when criticism of the Silicon Valley "culture" gets too noisy for the bros' ears.  

And yet Dickinson would like his critics to take the time to get to know the real him, and understand the intricacies of his intentions and existence before condemning his words. Speaking of his friends, he says: 

Yeah, I've had friends say that in the past, but you know, they also know me, and they know the real me. And the people who know the real me like kind of don't — would never take those tweets that kind of way. They know me well enough to know that I'm kidding, I'm playing a role. It’s a thing, it’s being — it’s comedy, it’s fun. People are so thin skinned and, I don't know, we cant joke anymore in this society it seems. And that’s kind of unfortunate, it seems. And it’s unfortunate that people didn't try to get my side of the story at all, really. It was just an instant thing. A post went on on Valleywag at 6:30 pm and 9:30 the next morning I lost my job. I feel there was a big rush, and that wasn’t necessary, and my side of the story could have been gotten easily. I'm easy to reach.

Those who are singled out, like Dickinson, will respond with the accurate rebuttal that everyone is human, and there's always more to the story. But especially in a male-dominated industry like tech, it's hard to feel sympathy: virtually the entirety of Silicon Valley is the brogrammer's side of the story. If Silicon Valley is truly a place were everyone is allowed to have space at the table by the merit of their talent, then its time the brogrammers started actually listening to the other people in the room.

       

Fire Rages on the New Jersey Boardwalk Rebuilt After Superstorm Sandy

Businesses lining the newly-rebuilt boardwalk on the Jersey Shore were damaged and destroyed in a fire on Thursday, which began near a Seaside Park ice cream stand and spread to six alarms, burning its way into nearby Seaside Heights. The Seaside Heights boardwalk was damaged last fall when Superstorm Sandy slammed the region, but it was partially rebuilt days before Memorial Day weekend for the summer tourist season. The Record explains just how much overlap there is between today's fire and the newly-rebuilt boardwalk:

The flames were destroying new boardwalk wood that had just been replaced days before Memorial Day weekend as both towns raced to recover from the devastation of Superstorm Sandy. Much of the Seaside Heights boardwalk was destroyed, and a roller coaster that plunged off a damaged amusement pier became a defining image of the storm. 

Governor Chris Christie warned would-be good Samaritans (or, alternately, disaster tourists) to "stay away" from the boardwalk while firefighters across the state battle the blaze. "Do not come here," he said. "We need to have easy access to the boardwalk."

This is the image you'll know from the Seaside boardwalk: 

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(photo: AP)

That's the roller coaster from FunTown pier, pushed into the ocean during the storm. What remained of the pier's buildings were reportedly damaged by today's fire. Part of the FunTown Pier building collapsed. 

LATEST: Massive fire destroys 80% of Seaside Park, NJ boardwalk http://t.co/5FD90E0XnU pic.twitter.com/hTYlFd0JJw

— NBC Nightly News (@nbcnightlynews) September 12, 2013

The fire reportedly began on the boardwalk near the well-known Kohr’s Frozen Custard in Seaside Park. It quickly spread to the custard stand, and then to nearby buildings. One of the first people to notice the fire was Christine Pallas, who was at the boardwalk to photograph recovery efforts from the storm. As the Star-Ledger notes, portions of the boardwalk destroyed today in Seaside Park were rebuilt after a 1995 fire. 

       

Zimmerman's Local Police Chief Agrees he's a 'Sandy Hook...Waiting To Happen'

The man in charge of the police department that responded to Monday's apparent domestic dispute at George Zimmerman's home agreed in an email that the man famous for shooting and killing Travyon Martin is a “Sandy Hook… waiting to happen," according to a report from ThinkProgress.

The exchange, between Lake Mary Police Chief Police Steve Bracknell and Santiago Rodriguez, was prompted by Rodriguez's angry letter to the department after Zimmerman was, once again, able to walk free after an encounter with law enforcement. Bracknell verified the authenticity of the emails, which include repeated instances of the police chief agreeing with Rodriguez's characterization of Lake Mary's infamous resident, while denying that he or his officers were involved in any sort of conspiracy theory (implied by Rodriguez) to cover up for Zimmerman. 

Rodriguez writes, towards the end of one long email: [image error]

And Bracknell, breaking down Rodriguez's long email point-by-point, agrees with this statement: 

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(that excerpt also gives a taste of the plethora of other accusations answered by the chief, to which he is less agreeable).

ThinkProgress also reports that Bracknell, in a reply to a second email shown below, also agrees that Zimmerman is a "ticking time bomb." The writers there reached out to Bracknell for comment, and he partially stepped away from the exchange, saying that all he was agreeing to was "the fact that [Zimmerman] seems to be involved in incidents” involving guns. 

On Monday, Lake Mary police arrived at a house shared by George and his wife Shellie, who recently filed for divorce, after she called 911 on her husband claiming he "was going to shoot" somebody. While what actually happened is still unclear — Shellie declined to press charges — the investigation into the incident is now focused on whether a video, recorded of the confrontation, can be recovered from an iPad smashed to bits by George. 

The full emails released by ThinkProgress are below. 

Zimmerman Lake Mary Emails by ThinkProgress

       

Rick Stengel Is at Least the 15th Journalist to Move to the Obama Administration

[image error]Time managing editor Rick Stengel (pictured above) is leaving journalism to go work for the State Department, making him at least the 15th reporter to go to work for the Obama administration. Stengel will be the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Politico and Capital New York report. The last high-profile journalist to leave Time for the Obama administration is Jay Carney, who is currently White House press secretary (pictured at right).

A wave of reporters went to work for President Obama early in the administration, a time when many media organizations were going through layoffs and Obama's approval rating was sky-high. The flow has tapered off since then. The Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe has semi-regularly kept tabs on the number of reporters working for Obama administration, counting 10 in May 2009, 14 in 2010, and 13 in 2011. The Washington Examiner's Paul Beddard counted 19 reporters working for "Team Obama" in February 2012, but he included liberal advocacy groups as part of the "team." 

Keeping track of how many reporters went to work under President Obama is tricky. Do you count those who had some other job in between reporting and the Obama administration? (Former TV reporter Beverley Lumpkin worked for the Project on Government Oversight before joining the Justice Department in 2011.) What about someone who went to work for George W. Bush, and kept his job under Obama? (Former ABC reporter Geoff Morrell went to work for the Defense Department in 2007.) Here's a non-exhaustive list of journalists who switched to working for the government:

Earlier this month, Douglas Frantz went to work for the State Department, too, as assistant secretary of state for public affairs. Frantz took a couple spins through the revolving door between the media and the executive branch, the Huffington Post noted. For decades, Frantz reported for publications like The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times until 2009, when he got a job as an investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which was chaired by then-Sen. John Kerry. In May 2012, Frantz got a job as The Washington Post's national security editor. Boston Globe online politics editor Glen Johnson went to work for Secretary of State John Kerry in January as a senior adviser. In February 2012, Stephen Barr went to work for the Labor Department as senior managing director of the Office of Public Affairs. Barr had written the Federal Diary column for The Washington Post, which he retired from in 2008. The Washington Post's Shailagh Murray became Vice President Joe Biden's communications director in March 2011. Rosa Brooks, an author who was a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, was counselor to Michele Flournoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy, from April 2009 to July 2011. Brooks now writes for Foreign Policy. In February 2010, Desson Thomson went to work as a speechwriter for the U.S. ambassador to the U.K., Louis Susman. Thomson had been a film critic for The Washington Post until 2008. Roberta Baskin, who worked as a TV journalist and ran the Center for Public Integrity, went to work for the Department of Health and Human Services in August 2009 as a senior communications adviser. Washington Post Outlook section deputy editor Warren Bass went to work for then-UN ambassador Susan Rice in January 2009 as director of speechwriting and senior policy adviser. He now works for the RAND Corporation. Education Week reporter David Hoff went to work for the Education Department in May 2009. Sasha Johnson, who worked for CNN as a senior political producer, became a spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation in May 2009, and, recently moved to be the chief of staff for the Federal Aviation Administration. The Chicago Tribune's Jill Zuckman became the Department of Transportation's communications director in February 2009. She was a commentator on MSNBC last year. Rick Weiss left The Washington Post to work for the Center for American Progress, then in March 2009 moved to be the communications director and senior policy strategist in the White House Office of Science and Technology.
       

'Big Brother' Will Never Die

Today in show business news: CBS re-ups with Julie Chen and the gang, Today gets a makeover, and James Franco and Jason Statham are together at last.

Good lord. Even though the show is full of racist nightmares and has been on for a million years, CBS has decided to renew reality show Big Brother for a sixteenth season. Well, actually, they probably renewed it partly because everyone's a racist nightmare. Everyone loves a racist nightmare! The ratings are up this season, even though Time Warner Cable was blocking CBS for nearly a month, so it seemed like a good idea to do another one. Plus, the show probably costs, what, twelve dollars an episode to produce? Just lock a bunch of idiots in an abandoned mansion in Sherman Oaks and feed them some pizza rolls and call it a damn day. Sit back and rake in the ad dollars. It's a no-brainer, racist nightmares and all. [Deadline]

Fox has curiously decided to push its surprisingly charming new sitcom Enlisted — about wacky folks on an Army base — from fall to midseason. Well, I guess it's not that curious. The network wants to package the show with winter sports to give it a better promotional boost. Makes sense, but it must suck for everyone involved to have to wait longer to see if anyone likes the show. Meanwhile Dads gets to fart out at the regular time, horrifying a nation and delighting a few, well, racist nightmares. Seth MacFarlane has all the luck. [The Hollywood Reporter]

You know that one annoying friend who, when you're watching some TV show and making fun of it, has to ruin the moment by saying, "God we're so funny. They should film us watching the show"? Well if you don't, consider yourself lucky. If you do, guess what: They won. That annoying person won. Bravo is in the process of adapting a British show which is just that. A TV show about people watching TV. It's called The People's Couch and Deadline describes it like this: "The series will focus on the Fall television season by showcasing avid TV watchers in their homes, as they laugh, cry, talk, gasp, and scream at their TVs watching the network’s new and returning shows." Ugh. No. Nope! The British version seems charming enough, but that's because British people are, by and large, in small doses, charming. But Americans? All trying to be funny and sassy and stupid and all that? No thanks. There are certain things in this world we don't need to see. And, my apologies to Beavis and Butthead, but people watching TV is one of them. That's that. [Deadline]

Look the Today show has a new set! It's hipper and cooler and, I dunno, maybe vaguely Asian-inspired? Oh and you might also notice that Carson Daly is there. Yeah he's joining the show in some capacity, because nothing can get rid of Carson Daly. He is eternal. And he's basicaly the only thing making NBC money right now, so why not. Anyway, here's the set.

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And here is a trailer for Homefront, a thriller starring a totally sense-making ensemble including Jason Statham, James Franco, Winona Ryder, and Kate Bosworth. Oh and it was written by Sylvester Stallone. So. Enjoy!