"I feel like I just won the Academy Award. If an artist can offend so many people that he has to go to prison..."

"... to protect society, that's really saying something. Most shock artists dream of this kind of attention, without the prison part."

Ira Isaacs, sentenced last month by a federal judge — this is in the United States— for 4 years, for violating obscenity law. The Huffington Post — considered a liberal website, and, again, this is in the United States — began its article about the sentencing with a joke: "Looks like someone's career went down the toilet." (The movies included the simulated consumption of feces.)

There is no shame anymore. And yet there still are obscenity trials. Absurd.

I'm finding this story now because I happened across an account to the trial in an article published last March at Reason.com: "Porn So Icky That It Can't Be Obscene" (by Jacob Sullum), describing the argument made at trial, which describes the argument made by Isaacs's lawyer:

"My intent is to be a shock artist in the movies I made," [Isaacs] testified, "to challenge the viewer in thinking about art differently... to think about things they'd never thought about before." Similarly, [his lawyer Roger] Diamond argued that the films have political value as a protest against the government's arbitrary limits on expression, illustrating the "reality that we may not have the total freedom the rest of the world thinks we have."

Sullum wrote:

I will be impressed if Isaacs, who faces a possible penalty of 20 years in prison, can pull off this feat of legal jujitsu, transforming the very qualities that make his movies objectionable into their redeeming value — especially since at least some of the jurors... found the evidence against him literally unwatchable. But if the jurors want to blame someone for making them sit through this assault on their sensibilities, they should not blame Isaacs. They should blame the Justice Department, which initiated the case during the Bush administration, and the Supreme Court, which established the absurdly subjective test they are now supposed to apply. Will they take seriously Isaacs' references to Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg, Kiki Smith, and Piero Manzoni, or will they dismiss his artistic name dropping as a desperate attempt to give his masturbation aids a high-minded purpose?

But here's some up-to-date news from 2 days ago: Minutes before Isaacs was to turn himself in to the  federal Bureau of Prisons, Isaacs go a call from his lawyer saying "don't go." The judge had approved his motion for bail pending appeal.

Isaacs told XBIZ that today's events were so surreal he had felt like he was in an episode of the "Twilight Zone" or a Quentin Tarantino movie....

"Last night, I was thinking it would be my last night of freedom," he said. "I really thought that this would be it; that I would be sleeping in prison the following night... and that would continue for a very long time."

We'll see what happens in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and — if we're lucky — the Supreme Court.

15,000 journalists cover 5,000 delegates in what Dana Milbank calls a "media lovefest."

Yikes.

I’ve had my deltoids massaged in candlelight by a licensed therapist; had a foaming pore cleanser and mask applied to my face by an aesthetician; been instructed in the Warrior, Half-Sun Salute and Dancer poses by a yoga instructor; and crawled into a hanging cocoon for a “meditative snooze.” I worked up quite an appetite doing all this, so I ordered vegan corn chowder and gluten-free chicken chile verde washed down with Fiji water — all courtesy of the Huffington Post.

And yet we know the hotels you have to sleep in are horrible and bedbug-infested, not that I'd envy this time-wasting nonsense if I didn't know that. Personally, I'm glad to be in Madison, Wisconsin, blogging the convention by watching it on C-SPAN.

Unpaid bloggers lose their lawsuit against Huffington Post.

"The principles of equity and good conscience do not justify giving the plaintiffs a piece of the purchase price when they never expected to be paid, repeatedly agreed to the same bargain, and went into the arrangement with eyes wide open."

"This is the electronic equivalent of someone writing a letter to the editor," John Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School, said in an interview. "You are rewarded by publication, not by payment."

You want to get paid for your writing? Bargain for it. And quit whining. No one wants to read things written by whiners, so you're only digging yourselves a deeper hole.

"Why Men Opting-Out Should Make You Angry"/"Puppies You Need More Than A Man."

HuffPo headlines, more or less inconsistent.

The first link is via Instapundit, who adds, sarcastically, "Apparently, women should always be angry." Now, now, with puppies, that need not be so.

Breitbart — working on designing HuffPo in '05 — "wanted every commenter to have to pay $1 to comment..."

"... and the dollar would go to charity but the user’s true identity would be authenticated through a credit card."

Also: "He was terrified of the idea that Huffington Post was a competitor to Drudge. He thought that Huffington Post could be bipartisan and that Drudge would love the idea of these big boldface names blogging because he understands the value of that...."

"I'm delighted to announce the launch of HuffPost Good News..."

"... a new section that will shine a much-needed spotlight on what's inspiring, what's positive, what's working -- and what's missing from what most of the media chooses to cover."

How perfectly insipid. It's like Martha Stewart, but for news. Is it bad of me to feel like this is meant to work as news for women? Relatedly, my father used to insist that the news should be entirely about people who died. Dying being such a profoundly important matter. As long as anyone has died — and there's never a day when no one dies (if there was, would we notice?) — that's what the news should focus on. I tried to say, but wouldn't that be monotonous? It's banal, isn't it? Why not report that people are breathing? The real question is: What are people doing that's different and important now, not who did something in the past that makes it seem significant that he has now died? It's that thing, that for the newly dead makes us care that he has now died, that we should be learning about now. No, whatever that thing was, death is bigger. Death is the news. The news for men.

AND: Here's HuffPo's news for men: Weird News.

When Ariana says "simply no there there" about a white hot story about a GOP presidential candidate, that's the definition of "false Internet garbage"...

Which is what the Perry campaign called Glen Maxey's self-published book "Head Figure Head: The Search for the Hidden Life of Rick Perry":

Initially, Maxey was collaborating with a reporter ("The Journalist") for a "National News Outlet" – unidentified in the book, but outed last week by Politico as Jason Cherkis of the Huffington Post. It eventually became clear that Cherkis' story was unlikely to be published. (Despite editorial and legal clearance, Ariana Huffington spiked it, last week telling Politico's Ken Vogel, there was "simply no there there.")

"Fox News Viewers Know Less Than People Who Don't Watch Any News: Study."

There's a headline from HuffPo, which surely doesn't contribute to the deterioration of one's knowledge... does it?

By the way, here's Skeptoid's "Top 10 Worst Anti-Science Websites." HuffPo makes the list:

HuffPo aggressively promotes worthless alternative medicine such as homeopathy, detoxification, and the thoroughly debunked vaccine-autism link. In 2009, Salon.com published a lengthy critique of HuffPo's unscientific (and often exactly wrong) health advice, subtitled Why bogus treatments and crackpot medical theories dominate "The Internet Newspaper". HuffPo's tradition is neither new nor just a once-in-a-while thing.

Science journalists have repeatedly taken HuffPo to task for this, and repeatedly been rebuffed or not allowed to submit fact-based rebuttals. HuffPo's anti-science stance on health and medicine appears to be deliberately systematic and is unquestionably pervasive.

People who read HuffPo's medical coverage know more than people who read other news sites. The problem is that so much of that extra stuff they know is a total crap. And, unlike confusion about whether protesters in Syria and Egypt have taken down their governments, believing that crap can lead to death.

"Tripoli Zoo: Libyan Lions Left Behind."

A HuffPo headline suggests the notion of a Rapture for animals.

If there were a Rapture for animals, which animals would be left behind? I'd say hummingbirds and butterflies. They are jerks.

And, sorry, I don't mean to seem unsympathetic to the zoo animals who are suffering in Libya. Who thinks of the zoo animals when there is a war? Here's a book: "The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo."

And a truly cool novel about zoo animals at the mercy of a human-made disaster is "Life of Pi." It's not a war, but a ship wreck after a zoo in India is dismantled and some of the animals are packed on board en route to Canadian.

"12 Reasons Why The AOL-Huffington Post Merger Is Going Down In Flames."

Is this believable or the result of various disgruntled employees leaking their side of the story?

"Mr. Schwarzenegger might never have been elected were it not for his wife..."

"... Ms. Shriver gave a passionate speech on behalf of her husband in the final days of his campaign for governor after The Los Angeles Times published a series of stories painting him as womanizer and groper."

Paragraph 7 of the NYT story about the breakup of Arnold and Maria. Now, why doesn't the NYT, with its fabulous archive of old stories, link to those old "womanizer" reports that were whipped out at the last minute to try to preserve the power of the Democratic governor?

I'll do it for them. October 3, 2003, "THE CALIFORNIA RECALL: THE LEADING REPUBLICAN; Sexual Accusations Prompt an Apology By Schwarzenegger":

Mr. Schwarzenegger's attitude toward women has been an issue since the start of his campaign. But the new accusations, and Mr. Schwarzenegger's reply, set off a maelstrom of protest from his critics, including women's groups, Democrats and Arianna Huffington, who dropped out of the race this week but had repeatedly clashed with Mr. Schwarzenegger during a debate last week.

Oh! Arianna was in the center of the maelstrom!

''I consider his campaign a very expensively produced masquerade,'' Ms. Huffington, who was running as an independent, said, "the question is will the mask be removed before the election or after. I believe what this story is going to do is really bring to question this big issue of trust and credibility. If his word and image are consistently proven to be false, he doesn't have a leg to stand on.''

The Los Angeles Times reported that three of the women said Mr. Schwarzenegger had grabbed their breasts. Another said he reached under her skirt. A fifth said he tried to strip off her bikini in a hotel elevator. The sixth said Mr. Schwarzenegger pulled her to his lap and asked if she was experienced in a particular sexual act. The accusations covered a 25-year period, ending in 2000....

"Sarah Palin Can't Name Most Influential Journalist," crows HuffPo, trying to make Palin look dumb...

... and inadvertently making journalism look lame. Because who can name the most influential journalist? I can't. Seems like maybe you have to be a journalist to think in such terms. (Ask me who the most influential law professor is.)

Here's the video with Sarah Palin supposedly embarrassing herself:



Those White House Correspondents' Dinner "attendees" who "had no problem coming up with answers" were journalists giving laughably self-interested answers like "my boss, Arianna Huffington." And there were plenty of attendees who couldn't come up with an answer or who changed the question to "my favorite journalist."

(Ask me who the most influential law professor is, and my answer will say something about me as I decide to promote my own school, suck up to some particular individual, highlight somebody obscure, or drivel about how there are so many wonderful law professors.)

Arianna says "the lawsuit completely ignores... how new media... have changed the game, enabling millions of people to shift their focus from passive observation to active participation — from couch potato to self-expression."

"Writing blogs, sending tweets, updating your Facebook page, editing photos, uploading videos, and making music are options made possible by new technologies... The same people who never question why someone would sit on a couch and watch TV for eight hours straight can't understand why someone would find it rewarding to weigh in on the issues — great and small — that interest them. For free."

You desk potatoes!

Arianna Huffington "has always been on the move ideologically..."

"... from her early squabbles with feminism to her role as a minister with the new-age Movement for Spiritual Inner Awareness, from her membership in Newt Gingrich's brain trust to her stint as populist activist - all before her greatest act, the Huffington Post."

Says Dana Milbank "with admiration."

Huffington deserves every one of those millions she'll be paid by AOL for creating this online sensation. She was once derided as "the most upwardly mobile Greek since Icarus" because of her many well-connected friends, but Huffington has earned her place as one of the extraordinary personalities of our time: an entrepreneur and writer who is always chasing the next big idea, wherever it is on the ideological spectrum.

Good for her. We need some extraordinary personalities for our time.

"Yes, she’s got political views, but gosh, look how political views have worked for Fox."

"There’s certainly the opportunity to create a much more powerful liberal voice in the country. The fact that it hasn’t been done yet, doesn’t mean it can’t be done."

And since you paid $315 million for it...

Remember when it was fun to mock Arianna and her little HuffPo project?

Begun with $1 million, it's now being sold to AOL for $315 million, with Arianna reigning as as president and editor in chief.

By handing so much control over to Ms. Huffington and making her a public face of the company, AOL, which has been seen as apolitical, risks losing its nonpartisan image. Ms. Huffington said her politics would have no bearing on how she ran the new business.

What difference does it make? AOL as a brand meant something to me in the 1990s, but not now. Who cares whether AOL retains a semblance of political neutrality? In any case, mainstream media always feels pretty liberal, so why would anyone really notice. Now, that quote is from the NYT, so... think about it. The NYT would like to be the big news site that looks neutral (but satisfies liberals). HuffPo is the raging competition, which needs to be put in its place.

Rachel Maddow thinks she's so sharp and funny that...

... she fails to see that other people are sharp and funny too and mocks a satire as if it were serious. Embarrassing. At least she humbly acknowledges the mistake... unlike some people:

Maddow's humility sparkles in comparison to The Huffington Post's, which upon being duped by ChristWire last August, simply erased parts of the article that showed they weren't in on the joke. In that instance, ChristWire had published an advice guide for women on how to tell if their husbands are gay.

"Bristol Palin was fixing a loose clip or an errant strand of hair for her mother...."

Oh! The injustice! Will the persecution of Sarah Palin never cease!

ADDED: "Over the past month, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has quietly altered her case for the presidency in a savvy shift of rhetoric."

Incandescent light bulbs.

Stock up!

UPDATE: Shining the harsh light of journalism on Arianna Huffington:

The light bulbs are the first incongruity I spot waiting for Arianna Huffington in the photo-laden living room of her Brentwood home, the one she bought for $4.1-million (U.S.) as an infamous new divorcée in 1997. The bulbs are old-time incandescents, not the compact fluorescents you might expect of someone who ran for governor of California against Arnold Schwarzenegger with the slogan “the hybrid vs. the Hummer.” 

Geoffrey Dunn Slams Sarah Palin in Racially Charged Article at Huffington Post.

Did that catch your eye? Maybe not, since the name Geoffrey Dunn probably doesn't mean much to you,* but the title of his article caught mine: "Sarah Palin Slams Michelle Obama in Racially Charged Passage From New Book." Oh? Did Sarah Palin — and her editors — lose their minds and wield anti-black epithets and stereotypes against the First Lady? No, of course not. Here's what Dunn wrote:

In passages leaked from her forthcoming book America by Heart, Sarah Palin... has taken another cheap shot at First Lady Michelle Obama.

That link goes to another HuffPo post by Dunn claiming it was a "cheap shot" for Palin to refer to "people" saying "they've never been proud of America." Back to the new Dunn item:

In a passage on perceptions of racial inequality in the United States, Palin slams President Barack Obama, who, she asserts, "seems to believe" that "America -- at least America as it currently exists -- is a fundamentally unjust and unequal country."

And then she goes after Michelle Obama:

Certainly his wife expressed this view when she said during the 2008 campaign that she had never felt proud of her country until her husband started winning elections. In retrospect, I guess this shouldn't surprise us, since both of them spent almost two decades in the pews of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's church listening to his rants against America and white people.

That's it?! Palin had the audacity to remind us about Jeremiah Wright's highly racial tirades? She doesn't even call Wright racist! She refers to the statements he made "against... white people." That's an astoundingly tame reference to the outrageously inflammatory sermons by Wright that surfaced during the 2008 campaign and amazingly didn't sink the Obama candidacy. Watch the video at that link. Wright is yelling at the congregation to reject Hillary Clinton because she's white.

Shamefully lame, Mr. Dunn. Even as an effort to prop up President Obama, it's lame. Do you think it benefits him for us to go back to Jeremiah Wright?

__________
* Don't you know Geoffrey Dunn is an "[a]ward-winning journalist, filmmaker and historian"? That's what it says at the post.  According to his bio:

Dunn has produced and directed more than a dozen award-winning documentary films, including Dollar a Day, 10¢ a Dance: A Historic Portrait of Filipino Farm Workers in America; Miss…or Myth?; and the recently completed Calypso Dreams.

Oh, that Geoffrey Dunn. Not to be confused with Griffin Dunne (who was so cool in "After Hours") or the Geoffrey Dunn who was born in 1903 and played the part of Mr. Lunnis in "The Leather Boys."