Marilyn Monroe Covergirl 2012

In a previous installment of this fine blog I ripped Graydon Carter of Vanity Fair for putting Marilyn Monroe on the cover of his magazine. What possible demographic, I wondered, could he be trolling for? I accused him, in that polite questioning of a stranger’s sanity and breeding sort of way of mine, of having lost whatever touch he might have had as an editor and spotter of trends. Well, folks…

As opposed to “Magazine Musings” perhaps we should feature “I Was Wrong!” as a continuing segment instead, since that seems to get just as much bandwidth. If current trends continue, I seem to be very wrong about the electric car and the President’s reelection, too. But why waste fodder in advance? In the strange case of Marilyn Monroe, I happen to be wrong right now.

Marilyn Monroe is the covergirl and feature of two new neo-pulps currently on newsstands. And she was on the cover of retail think mag Mental Floss last month. So she’s hot, folks. About as hot as she has ever been. I still contend that Carter is demented for putting so many dead women on the face of his magazine, but in this case he has deftly picked a winner.

Well played, Graydon Carter. You are the master and I am nothingness aspiring to nothing.

Newsweek R.I.P.

Speaking of nothingness, it seems my current Greatest Magazine in the World is about to head off the track, if the following can be believed:

Most magazine publishers these days concede that their publications will ultimately have to transition to digital-only at some point. But with major revenues still generated by print advertising and circulation, the question of when is usually unsettled. And a plan for a digital Newsweek could mean scaling back from its weekly schedule without abandoning print entirely.

Newsweek, it has been reported, is now being funded by one Barry Diller through his internet business—a holding company which includes Match.com and OurTime.com. The heirs of Doctor Cardin are no longer kicking in funds. Diller doesn’t like losing money. The writing seems to be on the wall.

As a subscriber, I have been impressed by the magazine’s transformation. The previous editor (who now oddly makes his living as “the failure talking head” on MSNBC’s Morning Joe) had jerked the magazine in the direction of becoming a poor True Crime Thrill Pulp. Tina Brown, by contrast, has brought in new writers with fresh voices and a cutting edge lay out. That said, the news magazine as a format does seem to be dead. The only real direction to go is with heavy opinion, investigative pieces and stunt issues. This is where Time and the Economist have gone.

As a subscriber, I am now not so inspired to renew. Consider this your notice.

Seriously, to hell with Penn State's football program, forever, amen.

I’m not a big sporto in the first place, and I’m certainly no friend of Penn State Football. I have my misgivings about college football, but as a student of history I do understand the series of unhappy accidents that have caused it to be in the state that it is in. Surely no one at the dawn of football thought the silly little student game was going to take over the colleges. But it does belong to the colleges—just as they invented the computer industry, the demographics industry and modern agribusiness, the colleges created the industry of football. Some may find this dubious, but as far as college incubated enterprises go, it’s in the center of the team photo. Having invented football as an industry, there is nothing all that unseemly for select members of the college community to be operating their own brand of football. Just because there is a Monsanto does not mean that you close down all of the college bio lab research programs. Quite the opposite, actually. The fact that football as an industry lifts the brand identification of all higher learning and tracks in gobs of cash from unaffiliated parties is a bonus brought about because of decades’ worth of good will. It’s a success organic to the university system and there is nothing wrong with college football as an industry.

That said, if the bio research lab at Penn State had released a monster that went around molesting children for ten years, the lab would not be handed simple probation. Despite its many patents and fat contracts with Monsanto, the lab would be closed down—if not burnt down. If the professor in charge of the lab had failed to report the existence of the monster or release of the monster, his career in science would be over. Being fired would be the least of his problems. And if the professor had covered up the existence of the monster for ten years, I rationally doubt that he would take the advent of the creature’s exposure as an opportunity to sweeten his retirement package—which is what the sainted coach Joe Paterno did. Not that there is a department head or college president who would give material aid to the cover up of a lab accident’s child molesting activities, but if there was, those people would be facing criminal charges. Not only would the lab close, the department be disbanded, but Penn State itself would dissolve. All of the innocent bio students would have to find a new place to study. Parts of Penn State might affiliate with another college. Maybe, twenty years from now, a new University of Happy Valley might emerge. And you can bet your eyes they won’t teach bio there.

That’s what should happen.

To keep this in the realm of Football, let’s say it was a pro team in a pro league that had suffered this scandal. For ten years the team had an equipment manager who was molesting children at the team’s facilities. There’s an eye witness. The coach knows. The owner knows. They don’t report it. They don’t close the facilities to the equipment man. If this were exposed, it would utterly kill a small league. The Kansas Komets or the Showme Believers or even the vaunted Red & Black are dead and so are all the teams that played with them. If it happened in the NFL, that team would be gone, disbanded, mid-season, if need be. And the NFL would make every effort to secure the team’s records to turn them over to the authorities. It wouldn’t matter if the team were the Green Bay Packers or Washington Redskins or Dallas Cowboys, the team would be gone. None of the other owners would want them in the league.

That’s what should happen.

As opposed to a big time college football program, let’s say Joe Paterno ran a used car lot. One day one of his body and fender men is accused of raping a little girl in the neighborhood. Knowing this is bad for business, he fires the guy. Later in the week, as he is walking the lot, Joe finds children’s underwear near a storage shed. But he does nothing, he tells no one. A week after that, a girl is reported missing in the neighborhood. Joe remembers that he didn’t get the lot’s keys back from the guy he fired. But he doesn’t tell anybody. He doesn’t check the shed. A month later a garbage man alerts the police to a bad smell on the lot. The police check the shed and find the dead girl. Now that cops are crawling all over the place, Joe tells the lot owner what he did—or didn’t do. Of course, the lot owner fires Joe on the spot. But that’s the least of Joe’s problems. The police could very well charge Joe with any number of serious crimes. As for the lot owner, losing the business is only the start of his worries.

That’s what didn’t happen.

Apple is Over

Since Apple's audits are conducted with a much larger budget than our investigations, we are confident that Apple is already well-aware of the problems that we address in this report. The real question remains whether or not they are willing to take the necessary actions to create changes. If Apple took significant steps that showed they are willing to work on projects to improve factory conditions, to share costs and responsibilities with factories, and to work with other brands to create industry-wide standards, this would be more helpful than their historical approach of promising change until attention turns elsewhere.

I don’t own any shares of Apple, the world’s most valuable company. I do not own any Apple products nor have I ever owned any. And stuff like the above makes me much less prone to want to buy any. Why would I want something made by slave labor? Moreover, why would I want to overpay for something made by slave labor? It is these two factors that I feel are going to be Apple’s undoing.

Apple doesn’t make anything. It designs things that are made by others. And if you wait long enough, you can get about the same thing that Apple sells much cheaper. At one time, it had a flair for design, but that flair died. I’m not the only one saying this now, but the Apple has gone rotten.

Ann Coulter Reconsidered

Many, many moon ago, this blog wrote off conservative bombshell Ann Coulter as a self-absorbed bomb thrower. Since then, many others have followed, with statements such as:

 Whether Coulter is sincere or not is beside the point. She clearly knows that saying outrageously offensive things will get her attention, so keeps on saying them.

So here I am to say “I told you so” or tout my skills as a leader of the right of center pack or whatever it is I fashion myself as, right? The opposite, actually. I’m not quite ready to wave the “I Was Wrong!” flag again (once a posting is enough), but I am willing to change my mind a shade. Like her or dislike her, she picked Romney for a loser long before anyone else did. And that Romney might win doesn’t make him any less of a loser. But I will wave that “I Was Wrong!” flag not a moment before I have to.

By the way, Hardware Store, the new novella by yours truly is available by clicking the banner ad. And now I know how it feels to hawk something.