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Mar. 16th, 2007
"Foxholes" is my new favorite word
Mar. 16th, 2007 11:38 am Dance, Foxholes, Dance!
On more than one occasion, I worked with Fox News producers and reporters. Once, in Herat, I saw one of the Foxholes approached by a couple of soldiers. One of the soldiers said he was glad they could finally talk to a "conservative" reporter. The reporter laughed and said, "Someone's got to balance out the liberals." But, later, I ran into that same reporter in Bagram. He wanted an interview with some soldiers and, when I grabbed one at random to ask if he wanted to talk to Fox News, the soldier--an Army captain--said he didn't, because, as a Democrat, he wasn't a fan of the network's politics. The reporter, shaken up, said that was ridiculous. The network had no politics, but only told the truth. "Whatever," said the captain and walked off. The reporter, after a few beats narrowed his eyes at the soldier's back and quietly hissed, motherfucker.
Just before Thanksgiving, 2004, a Fox News producer with whom I'd worked a number of times in Kabul and Bagram showed up on Bagram Air Field to shoot what military PA people call "Hi Moms"--the little snippets of video of service members saying "I'm Corporal Bill Jones from Paducah, Kentucky and I want to say 'Happy Thanksgiving' to my wife, Sheila and my parents Don and Lorraine in Louisville." I was confused about why he would be doing this. My unit--and every PA unit--shot hundreds of these every year for holidays, the Super Bowl, the Army/Navy game, etc., and provided them free of charge to all who asked for them. When I asked the producer why he had come, he said he'd had the same question when he was told that he should know better. It was "part of (his) contract," he said, to get on his knees "and give Bush a blowjob" every month or so.
Fascinating.
On more than one occasion, I worked with Fox News producers and reporters. Once, in Herat, I saw one of the Foxholes approached by a couple of soldiers. One of the soldiers said he was glad they could finally talk to a "conservative" reporter. The reporter laughed and said, "Someone's got to balance out the liberals." But, later, I ran into that same reporter in Bagram. He wanted an interview with some soldiers and, when I grabbed one at random to ask if he wanted to talk to Fox News, the soldier--an Army captain--said he didn't, because, as a Democrat, he wasn't a fan of the network's politics. The reporter, shaken up, said that was ridiculous. The network had no politics, but only told the truth. "Whatever," said the captain and walked off. The reporter, after a few beats narrowed his eyes at the soldier's back and quietly hissed, motherfucker.
Just before Thanksgiving, 2004, a Fox News producer with whom I'd worked a number of times in Kabul and Bagram showed up on Bagram Air Field to shoot what military PA people call "Hi Moms"--the little snippets of video of service members saying "I'm Corporal Bill Jones from Paducah, Kentucky and I want to say 'Happy Thanksgiving' to my wife, Sheila and my parents Don and Lorraine in Louisville." I was confused about why he would be doing this. My unit--and every PA unit--shot hundreds of these every year for holidays, the Super Bowl, the Army/Navy game, etc., and provided them free of charge to all who asked for them. When I asked the producer why he had come, he said he'd had the same question when he was told that he should know better. It was "part of (his) contract," he said, to get on his knees "and give Bush a blowjob" every month or so.
Fascinating.
Question of the day
Mar. 16th, 2007 02:48 pmScott over at Lawyers, Guns, and Money asks what folks think is the most overrated tv show, and gets one comment that nearly made me snarf Vitamin Water:
Babylon Five. Revered by a large subset of SF nerds, despite the fact that it had a terrible cast, the characters all spoke in the author's (speechifying) voice, most of the plot and setting elements were shamelessly borrowed (the series' big order-versus-chaos metaplot climax was stolen directly from the alignment section of the Advanced D&D Dungeon Master's Guide), and roughly half of the episodes featured the characters marking time while the overall metaplot advanced a couple of ticks. And the spinoff shows were even worse. Beloved by people who think Star Trek wasn't preachy enough. Not only does the new BSG shit on it from a great height, but the old one does, too.
FMguru
Then Matt T. dismantles Firefly, ending with this phrase which I think summarizes the show rather well: "Though is it just me, or does it totally rip off the "Wing Commander" game series?"
Since he did all the work for me I just added: "Firefly was quite possibly the most horrendous excuse for a sci-fi series not created and produced by the SciFi channel. I would happily sit through an entire day of back to back showings of "Mansquito" than watch a single episode of Firefly ever, ever again."
I disagree with those slagging on XFiles, of course, unless they're referring to post season 7, in which case I'd merrily join them. I'd also add all series with the letters CSI attached to them, pretty much all current and recent sitcoms, Lost (which perfected the art of shark jumping ages ago), and absolutely 24 (which has about as much plot as your average Half-Life game).
Comments are open, which series would you add?
Babylon Five. Revered by a large subset of SF nerds, despite the fact that it had a terrible cast, the characters all spoke in the author's (speechifying) voice, most of the plot and setting elements were shamelessly borrowed (the series' big order-versus-chaos metaplot climax was stolen directly from the alignment section of the Advanced D&D Dungeon Master's Guide), and roughly half of the episodes featured the characters marking time while the overall metaplot advanced a couple of ticks. And the spinoff shows were even worse. Beloved by people who think Star Trek wasn't preachy enough. Not only does the new BSG shit on it from a great height, but the old one does, too.
FMguru
Then Matt T. dismantles Firefly, ending with this phrase which I think summarizes the show rather well: "Though is it just me, or does it totally rip off the "Wing Commander" game series?"
Since he did all the work for me I just added: "Firefly was quite possibly the most horrendous excuse for a sci-fi series not created and produced by the SciFi channel. I would happily sit through an entire day of back to back showings of "Mansquito" than watch a single episode of Firefly ever, ever again."
I disagree with those slagging on XFiles, of course, unless they're referring to post season 7, in which case I'd merrily join them. I'd also add all series with the letters CSI attached to them, pretty much all current and recent sitcoms, Lost (which perfected the art of shark jumping ages ago), and absolutely 24 (which has about as much plot as your average Half-Life game).
Comments are open, which series would you add?