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President Obama to appear on 'The Daily Show' (in his ongoing efforts to appeal to young voters before the midterm elections on Nov. 2. The demo needs the encouragement; according to a poll conducted by the Harvard's Institute of Politics,... Read the rest of this post

(without getting your head flushed) and Deal with an Ex-Best Friend, ... um, Girls, and a Heartbreaking Hamster by Donna Gephart Peachtree Press / Random House 2010  I think the only thing the title doesn't include is the main character's love of Jon Stewart, and perhaps the fact that he isn't legally old enough to have a YouTube account...  David Greenberg is a bit of a nebbish who wants so

Kids upfront season kicks off (with Disney presenting advertisers its 2010-11 slate of programming for Disney Channel and Disney XD including new original Disney Channel movies "Avalon High," based on the Meg Cabot book, and that Harriet the Spy... Read the rest of this post

Jennifer Burns is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Virginia.  Her new biography, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, follows Rand through her meteoric rise from struggling Hollywood screenwriter to best-selling novelist.   Burns highlights two facets of Rand’s work that make her a perennial draw for those on the right: her promotion of capitalism, and her defense of limited government.  In honor of Jennifer Burns’s The Daily Show appearance (be sure to tune in 11 tonight!) we have posted an excerpt below.

“I am coming back to life,” Rand announced as the Nathaniel Branden Institute entered its second year of existence.  Watching Nathan’s lectures fill, Rand began to believe she might yet make an impact on the culture.  Roused from her despair, she began once more to write.  In 1961 she published her first work of nonfiction, For the New Intellectual, and in 1962 launched her own monthly periodical, The Objectivist Newsletter. Over the course of the decade she reprinted articles from the newsletter and speeches she had given in two more books, The Virtue of Selfishness and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.  Although she occasionally talked of a fourth novel, Rand had abandoned fiction for good.  Instead she reinvented herself as a public intellectual. Gone were the allegorical stores, the dramatic heroes and heroines, the thinly coded references to real politicians, intellectuals, and events.  In The Objectivist Newsletter Rand named names and pointed fingers, injecting herself directly into the hottest political issues of the day.  Through her speeches and articles she elaborated on the ethical, political, and artistic sides of Objectivism.

Rand’s ideas were particularly attractive to a new generation of campus conservatives, who saw rebellion against a stifling liberal consensus as a basic part of their identity.  Unlike older conservatives, many right-leaning college students were untroubled by her atheism, or even attracted to it.  As Rand’s followers drew together in campus conservative groups, Ayn Rand clubs, and NBI classes, her ideas became a distinct stream of conservative youth culture.  Through her essays on government, politics, and capitalism Rand herself encouraged the politicization of her work.  In 1963 she even endorsed a new Republican on the scene, Barry Goldwater, a move that situated her as the leader of a growing political and intellectual movement.

At first look Objectivism may appear a freakish outgrowth of the turbulent 1960s, but it had significant parallels in American history.  Nearly a century before, similar reading clubs and political activism had sprung up around Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, a book uncannily similar to Atlas Shrugged, if diametrically opposite politically…

Rand made her network television debut in 1960, appearing on Mike Wallace’s celebrated interview show.  Her dark eyes flashing, she refused to be intimidated by the liberal Wallace and expertly parried his every question and critique.  Her performance caught the eye of Senator Barry Goldwater, who wrote Rand a letter thanking her for defending his “conservative position.”  Rand had not mentioned the senator by name, but he immediately recognized the similarity between their views.  Goldwater told Rand, “I have enjoyed very few books in my life as much as I have yours, Atlas Shrugged.”  He enclosed an autographed copy of his new book, the best-selling Conscience of a Conservative.  Shortly thereafter the two met briefly in New York.  Rand followed up this encounter with a lengthy letter urging Goldwater to support capitalism through reason alone.  Although she considered him the most promising politician in the country, Rand was distressed by Goldwater’s frequent allusions to religions.  The Conscience of a Conservative had been written primarily by L. Brent Bozell, William F. Buckley’s brother-in-law, and accordingly reflected the fusionist consensus of National Review.

In her letter to Goldwater Rand hammered on the need to separate religion and politics, a theme that would animate her for decades.  She singled out National Review for special criticism because it was a supposedly secular magazine that surreptitiously tried “to tie Conservatism to religion, and thus to take over the American Conservatives.”  If such an effort succeeded, Rand asked, what would become of religious minorities or people like herself who held no religion?  Goldwater’s response, which reiterated his Christian religious beliefs, was brief yet polite.  Rand had a powerful admirer, but not a convert.

As her depression lifted, Rand began to explore different ways she might exercise cultural influence.  She was newly interested in politics because of her esteem for Goldwater and her dislike of the dashing presidential contender, Jack Kennedy, to her a glamour candidate who offered no serious ideas.  She made her first venture back into political commentary with a scathing attack on Kennedy, “JFK: High Class Beatnik,” a short article published in the libertarian journal Human Events.  In the summer of 1960 she even dispatched Nathan to investigate the possibility of her founding her own political party. It was unclear if Rand saw herself as a potential candidate or simply a gatekeeper for others.  Nathan sounded out a few of Goldwater’s political advisors, who told him that Rand’s atheism severely limited her prospects.  Abandoning that idea, Rand returned once again to intellectual pursuits.  She sent her attack on JFK to the head of the Republican National Committee to be used as needed in Republican publications.

Shaking off her lethargy, Rand now began paying attention to the new following she had gained through Atlas Shrugged.  The book was an instant best-seller despite the largely negative reviews it received.  As with The Fountainhead enormous quantities of enthusiastic fan mail poured in.  Although Rand could not respond personally to ever letter, she was interested in her readers, particularly those who wrote especially perceptive or ignorant letters.  Nathan often interposed himself between Rand and the most objectionable writers, but in the early 1960s it was entirely possible to send her a letter and receive a personal response.  Sometimes she even engaged in a lengthy correspondence with fans she had not met, although her more usual response was to refer the writer to work she had already published.

The Nathaniel Branden Institute both capitalized on and fostered Rand’s appeal.  Nathan used the addresses from her fan mail to build NBI’s mailing list and advertise new courses.  As the lectures expanded into new cities, he took out newspaper advertisements describing Objectivism as the philosophy of Ayn Rand.  In 1962 he and Barbara published a hagiographic biography, Who is Ayn Rand?, which included an essay by Nathan on the fundamentals of her philosophy.  Slowly public perception of Rand began to shift, establishing her as a philosopher, not just a novelist.  The NBI ads and lectures made Objectivism into a movement, a larger trend with Rand at the forefront.

In the genre of science fiction, there is a sub genre, which spoofs all the books that came before it. Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker series is an great example of that as well as Terry Pratchet’s Discworld series.

A great new addition to this sub-genre is The Sheriff of Yrnameer by Daily Show writer Michael Rubens. It focuses on a self centered thief and smuggler named Cole who is trying to get away from a bounty hunter Alien named Kenneth.
In this world, capitalism is king and all the planets have corporate sponsors and the earth was destroyed (”At least we got the terrorists”.) Before long Cole has to deal with a peace loving tough girl, businessmen zombies, freeze dried children, a computer with sub par artificial intelligence, a human loving alien, before making it to the mythic unsponsored planet of Yrnameer to battle the toughest creature in the galaxy and try to save a planet full of peace loving artists.

This is a novel that will make you laugh but it also has a lot of action and adventure along the way.

Recently I wrote a post about how Michael Jackson's death may have signaled the end of "megafame." Similarly Walter Cronkite's death is symbolic of the end of an era in journalism where one anchor could have so much power, credibility and influence... Read the rest of this post

Daniel Sperling is a Professor of Engineering and Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California, Davis and a Founding Director of US-Davis’s Institute of Transportation Studies. He and Deborah Gordon wrote Two Billion Cars: Driving Towards Sustainability which provides a concise history of America’s love affair with cars and an overview of the global oil and auto industries. Check out the video below to see Sperling’s appearance on The Daily Show.

We decided it would be fun to ask Sperling some questions before and after his big television appearance. After the video are the post-show questions. Click here to read the pre-show questions.  Read other OUPblog posts about this book here.

OUPblog: What advice would you give authors preparing to go on the show?

Daniel Sperling: Watch previous interviews, try to stay calm, have a glass of wine, and pray for the best. Try to formulate your main messages but don’t count of articulating more than 1 or two.

OUPblog: Was it what you expected, did you get your key sound byte in?

Sperling: I got 2 of my 5 or so main points across. I guess that is a success?!

OUPblog: What was the green room like?!

Sperling: Perfectly comfortable and pleasant, but way overhyped. Light green walls, flat screen TV, sofa, bag of goodies (the best being a Jon Stewart cap and t-shirt).

Daniel Sperling is a Professor of Engineering and Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California, Davis and a Founding Director of US-Davis’s Institute of Transportation Studies. He and Deborah Gordon wrote Two Billion Cars: Driving Towards Sustainability which provides a concise history of America’s love affair with cars and an overview of the global oil and auto industries. Be sure to watch tonight when Daniel Sperling is interviewed on The Daily Show.

We decided it would be fun to ask Sperling some questions before and after his big television appearance. Below are the pre-show questions. Check back tomorrow to watch a clip and read the post-show interview.  Read other OUPblog posts about this book here.

OUPblog: Do you watch The Daily Show and have you ever fantasized about being a guest?

Daniel Sperling: Yes, I watch, but I never even fantasized about being a guest—even though all my friends and students now say I have reached the highest state of coolness; one (young) professor friend now says he idolizes me.

OUPblog: What advice have people given you about going on the show?

Sperling: Roll with the jokes, don’t even think about trying to be funny, be succinct, know your key messages, don’t wear white shirts or patterned jackets, have fun.

OUPblog: What is the one thing you would like people to take away from your interview?

Sperling: It’s time for all of us to engage in solving the oil and climate challenges and, to quote our president, yes we can.

Karen Greenberg is the Executive Director of the Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law.  Her newest book, The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo’s First 100 Days, is a gripping narrative account of the first 100 days at Guantanamo and an analysis of how this time set up patterns of power that would come to dominate the Bush administration’s overall strategy in the “War on Terror.”  Below is an excerpt from the very beginning of the book.  Be sure to watch tonight when Greenberg appears on The Daily Show.

Two days after Christmas, the decision was announced to the public.  Donald Rumsfeld made it official.  The new detention operation would be set up at Guantanamo Bay.  SOUTHCOM would supervise the activities on the base.  The 2nd Force Service Support Group, normally based at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina, would run the effort.  It would be a joint command, combining the efforts of the various branches of the U.S. military.  The name of the joint task force would be JTF 160-the very same label that had been used for the task force during the migrant crisis.

Relying on the patriotism of the forces on the ground and their obedience to the chain of command, Secretary Rumsfeld anointed Guantanamo in defiance not just of warnings from the past, but of military professionalism.

True, the military men and women on the ground, their superiors at SOUTHCOM, the interagency group in Washington, and the Pentagon all seemed to agree with one another.  In the shadow of 9/11, they all wanted to do the patriotic thing-which in this case was to help General Franks get rid of the prisoners under his command.  But the ready assent was the beginning of a long, slow slide into an untenable and, as it would turn out, extralegal situation that would be more and more difficult to end with each phase of its existence.

But underneath the narrative of agreement lay missteps and warning signs that would come to plague Guantanamo going forward and that were apparent even before the operation was up and running.  Chief among these exceptions to the norm had been the subversion of process that had been illustrated in the exclusionary and secretive way in which the Military Order of November 13 had been drafted and turned into policy, a habit that would come to define the Bush administration through its eight years.

This bureaucratic exclusivity would grow in its destructive impact as Guantanamo came into being, but for the moment, there was a more pressing danger, one that lay outside of the usurpation of powers in Washington or the extralegal premises of Guantanamo, and one that was overlooked by those making policy in D.C.  This was the danger posed by the fact that the United States military was not quite equipped to handle the mission that was about to be handed them-that of detaining prisoners of war.  It wasn’t just that the naval base itself was being asked to perform well above its capacity in terms of resources.  It was also a matter of professional expertise.  The nation’s military did not have the requisite expertise in prisoner of war detention, as the United States had not had to deal with prisoners of war on its own since World War II.

Nor was it helpful that the military was to conduct the operation on the blueprint of migrant detention operations.  The task at hand and the professional skills readily available to the Pentagon did not match up.  The plan for the detention effort that JTF 160 was given stood on the books as a migrant crisis operation, a template that ironically had itself struggled with definitional terms when it forbade the use of the term “refugee” for the camp’s residents. Now, in the year 2001, the definition of terms was intentionally obfuscated once again.  No matter what words were used, prisoner incarceration was not equivalent to migrant detention.  Captives were neither refugees nor migrants; they demanded a whole other kind of treatment and a separate set of policies.  This lack of expertise was further hindered by the fact that the job of SOUTHCOM was to deal with the countries and of the Caribbean and Latin America and issues germane to that geographical part of the globe.  Thus, its knowledge base was largely irrelevant when it came to Middle Eastern and South Asian culture.

Though Guantanamo may have provided a legal godsend and a logistically manageable environment, deeper realities suggested that trouble lay ahead for the detention facility.  It stood not just on historical precedent and legal opportunism but on the unstable ground of secrecy, disregard for professionalism and expertise, and a legal flexibility.  The deployed of JTF 160 to Guantanamo was an emergency act, done in lieu of a better option-the least worse choice for the least worst place.

No one understood better the treacherous pragmatic-and moral-implications of sidesteppping established law and policy than the man chosen to command the detention operation there.

In the post below David D. Perlmutter, a professor in the KU School of Journalism & Mass Communications, and author of Blogwars, reflects on his appearance on The Daily Show. Read other blog posts by Perlmutter here.

Just finished taping The Daily Show. I was interviewed by Stewart himself. What stuck me was how the discussion about blogging was pretty straight and without any real mockery. I argue in Blogwars that 2008 is the year blogging has arrived—becoming part of journalism, entertainment media, and, of course politics. Well, I think one sign is that instead of making fun of bloggers as geeks and freaks Stewart himself stated that many talented people blog and that blogs were no longer a fringe phenomenon. That’s a significant leap from the past. Lets spin back to when that was not so. Bloggers recall the March 2004 segment of The Daily Show that made fun of blogs and blogging via a satirical segment on “$ecret$ of New Journalism $ucce$$.” Jay Rosen, an NYU professor and one of the early academic proponents of blogging was roundly skewered by a TDS correspondent.

So it’s lucky for me that blogs have some so far!

By the way, in person Stewart is gracious and really puts guests—like, say, nervous academics—at ease.

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Can’t stop searching for words in Safire’s Political Dictionary? Neither can I. But I have found another great way to see Safire’s genius in action, the youtube video below and his Daily Show appearance. So plug in your headphones and get ready to expand your political vocabulary.

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Those who know me will know that I am a huge fan of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I'd been trying to get tickets for the last two years, and finally, last June I think it was, I was successful in nabbing two tickets for January 31st, 2008.

But then came the Writers' Strike, and I've been angsting back and forth about attending - kinda like this:



In the end, I did a Jewish thing. I went, but felt REALLY guilty about it.

I spoke to the people on the picket line about the strike, and what we can do to help.



Here's an interesting piece of data. When you buy the Daily Show on iTunes for $1.99, Viacom gets $1.45.
The writers', on the other hand, get a big fat ZERO.

Bear Stearns wrote recently that "the impact of accepting the writers' proposal is largely negligible - less than 1% of annual earnings per share for the media companies.

Here's an explanation of the issues involved by the striking Daily Show writers - it's worth watching to remind yourself of why we miss these guys so much.



Help the Daily Show writers by calling Viacom executives and tell them to come back to the table and give the writers a fair share of the content they've created.

Numbers:

Sumner Redstone (Owner, Viacom) 212 975 4321
Phillipe Dauman (CEO, Viacom) 212 258 6000

You can also go to http://www.strikeswag.com to buy a t-shirt. Profits go to the WGA Union Solidarity Fund.

Now can I just have a brief fangirl moment?



You're not allowed to take any photos in the studio, but this was in the holding room outside. I was really psyched because Rob Riggle was the "reporter" in last night's show - he and John Oliver are my favorite of the current reporters. They also have a stand-up guy to warm up the crowd before the taping - last night it was Paul Mecurio, who was both extremely funny and extremely raunchy. After listening to him I understood why you aren't welcome at a Daily Show taping unless you're 18.

Jon Stewart answered a few questions before the taping and spoke briefly afterwards. He's funny off the cuff, as you might expect. I'd seen him do his stand-up routine two years ago, and laughed so hard my face hurt - it was right after Scooter Libby was indicted and he did this hilarious riff about how a guy named "Scooter" might do in prison.

Anyway, I still feel conflicted about having gone, but was told by one of the striking writers that I'm not a scab - I'd only be a scab if I wrote for the Daily Show (in my dreams, maybe) and went back to work.
I do plan to try to get tickets again for when the strike is over - I hope that the studios give the writers their fair share SOON!

Two Caravaggio paintings previously stuck in the Royal Collection's dusty storerooms, due to being mislabled as reproductions, have been taken out to be placed on display this week in England. Caravaggio....now there was a painter.... Read the rest of this post