Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 150

A Shout-Out From Bruce

A friend tells me he was listening to Springsteen on Sirius interview today and he quotes Bruce saying:   "I was in the Village one day and I picked up this paper. It was called Crawdaddy.  These guys were writing about music the way I was thinking about it."   Of course, some may know that, later, in early 1973, we wrote the first major story on Bruce to appear anywhere--8000 words, at that.  And became friends for many years.  But in that quote he is referring to before all that, when he was running up to New York for gigs before signing first record contract in 1972.  Full story coming in my forthcoming memoir but here's a little video I made a couple years back...

Another '60 Minutes' Fiasco

Just in the past few months we've witnessed horrific, biased, error-laden "60 Minutes" reports on (for starter) disabled Americans, Benghazi and the NSA.   And the hits keep coming.  Just yesterday: a one-sided and misleading critique of clean energy and government funding.   Here's a review at The Nation and another at Think Progress's Climate Progress blog. From the latter:

Besides the fact that the piece made no mention of climate change — which is one of the stronger arguments behind cleantech — the report largely passed over the recent explosive growth in wind power, solar power, LED lights and electric vehicles.

But it’s not like 60 Minutes wasn’t told about the recent major successes in the clean tech industry. Robert Rapier, Chief Technology Officer at Merica International, was interviewed by 60 Minutes, and spoke to them at length about cleantech’s many successes. But the only comments included were ones about cleantech investor Vinod Khosla, who CBS asserts is “known as the father of the cleantech revolution” (he is not).

From Hiroshima to Fukushima

I wrote an article by that title after the nuclear crisis hit Japan (and, in a sense, the world) after the tsunami, linking the radiation threat to what followed the atomic bombings of 1945, about which I've written two books.  Now the NYT's popular "Lens" blog profiles a Japanese photographer, still living,  who literally has traveled the road from the A-bomb go the current nuclear disaster.  In fact, Kikujiro Fukushima's entire celebrated career was inspired by a Hiroshima survivor asking him to go out and show the troubles and pain of people there and elsewhere.  And he has done that, plus reminding his fellow citizens about Emperor Hirohito's role in World War II.

As it happens, I have a special interest in visual images from Hiroshima, from my interview with the photog who took the only pictures there on August 6, 1945, to my book on the U.S. cover-up of Japanese and American military footage that exposed what really happened there.   But read the entire "Lens" story to meet a unique and remarkable individual.

Great Scott! Inside That 'NYT' Tweet Controversy

The Times' fine public ed. Margaret Sullivan with a lengthy take on that movie company using a tweet--or an edited part of it--by the paper's film critic A.O. Scott as the sole text in a full-page ad for "Inside Llewyn Davis."  This has raised questions from the beginning but I am late to learning that 1) Scott did not approve the use 2) the tweet was revised 3) the Times approved the ad before running and still seems to think it's okay.  Sullivan: "In the end, nothing terrible happened here. But it’s a moment that, at the very least, ought to cause some internal discussion at The Times and the establishing of clear rules and practices."

Halls of Fame and Shame

The annual Baseball Hall of Fame voting is over and results to be announced Wednesday night.  As usual we've had the usual contorversy over whether superstars who clearly cheated should make it, with most (including yours truly) still opposing but plenty of disgraceful opinions expressed by others.  ESPN took the step of revealing the ballots of its 17 official voters and if they are any indicaiton the very worthy (and untainted) Maddux, Thomas and Glavine will get in this year, along with sometimes-suspected Biggio.    Here are the voters who backed both Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, too of the biggest cheaters ever: 

Caple, Edes, Kurkjian, O'Connor, Olney, Pascarelli, Roberts, Rubin, Saxon. 

Streaming Springsteen

His "Ghost of Tom Joad" and other songs from upcoming album streaming today.  The Morello duet still one of my alltime favorites vids (and more satisfying than recorded version, I'd say):

'Missa' in Action

That kid Ludwig is red hot.  NYT covers auction next week of one page from an 1820 sketchbook with revisions of his mighty "Missa Solemnis" including a few notes in the prelude to one of his greatest movements, the "Benedictus." They expect it to go for over $200,000.  Here's the video the auction house did about it:

Leonard Rings Belz

Great find by Dangerous Minds today:  Leonard Cohen on Richard Belzer's short-lived talk show back in 1985 at the lowest point of his popularity.  The album they talk about at the beginning, rejected by Columbia, included..."Hallelujah."  Whoops.  Famous line by Columbia exec to Leonard: "We know you're great but we don't know if you are any good."  (h/t Stu Levitan)

 

Everly Brothers Accuse Lord Grantham...

of sleeping with "the upstairs maid" in obscure and odd 1968 album cut "The Lord of the Manor."  Come on baby let's go Downton, let's go let's go let's Downton...

Another Close Look

Glenn Greenwald, at his personal blog, replies to an email from a reader re: his new Pierre Omidyar/First Look media venture and his NSA reporting.  Among his revelations/explanations:

--He has no ownership stake in First Look at all.  "My relationship to First Look is fundamentally unchanged from my relationship to Salon and the Guardian: I will write my blog and news articles which they publish. The only formal difference is that, because it's a start-up, we're building the whole thing from the ground up, and part of my work now, and in the future, will go beyond just the journalism I'm personally producing to help shape and construct what the new venture will be. That is a big part of what makes it so exciting for me."

--"The centrality of me and the NSA story to this new venture has been wildly overstated. Yes, my joining it is what caused there to be a lot of publicity in the first instance, but that's only because we were not ready to announce it when it leaked. This is going to be a general-interest media outlet with many dozens of journalists, editors and others with long and established histories of journalism, and obviously extends far beyond my work or the NSA story."

--They are not "holding back documents."

--Media have wrongly claimed that only he has the full Snowden docs, ignoring that Laura Poitras also has them.

--The theories that Omidyar created the new org to suppress Snowden docs that make him or eBay/PayPal look bad is "absurd...the very idea that this large group of people with a history of very independent journalism against the largest governmental and corporate entities is suddenly going to be told that they're "not allowed" to publish a big story because Pierre doesn't want it published, and we're all just going to passively and quietly obey, is truly laughable to me, but I concede that I can't disprove that to you."