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George Carlin Disappoints Coulter Haters James Hirsen
THE LEFT COAST REPORT
Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
"Ann Coulter and George Carlin are on the show tonight. That's the last time we have eharmony.com pick our guests," Jay Leno quipped at the beginning of his broadcast. Harmony is just what viewers saw on the show, and that made libs very unhappy. Apparently, they were expecting comedian George Carlin to take fellow guest Ann Coulter apart with his patented wit.
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The Associated Press had essentially set up expectations by describing Coulter as an "the acid-tongued conservative" while Carlin was heralded as a "quick-witted, antiestablishment comedian." But Carlin was a classy, cordial gentleman and treated Coulter with respect. The only joke he launched came as he gave his Leno-adjoining seat up for Coulter. "I never thought Ann Coulter would make me move to the right," Carlin cracked. This did not please the TV Squad blog, which groused, "You would think that George Carlin, one of the most brilliant comedic minds around and someone who would give Ann Coulter a run for her money, would get in on the conversation." The Web site called the show "a complete waste of time" and asked, "Where was the Coulter clash?" Other mainstream media outlets took potshots as well. Variety called Coulter "the ice princess of arch-conservatism" and described Carlin as "a crown prince of '60s iconoclasm."
Coulter was chastised for being "bent on making the most of her exposure via the mainstream media she professes to loathe." A Los Angeles Times blog called Coulter "weirdly school-girlish," adding that "her evident pleasure in herself is in direct proportion to the revulsion she occasions in others." Expressing dismay at Carlin's civility, the site blogged, "We sat through an entire 'Tonight Show' for this?" The Left Coast Report says I read through a whole L.A. Times blog for this?
2. Union Workers Protest Bruce Springsteen's Non-union Venue Bruce Springsteen, rock symbol of the working class, is on a concert tour to perform the pro-labor tunes of Pete Seeger. The concert, titled "Seeger Sessions: We Shall Overcome," is part of an 18-show U.S. tour in which Springsteen performs the songs of the legendary folk singer. Seeger either co-wrote or popularized songs such as "If I Had a Hammer" and "John Henry." But the "Boss" ticked off Milwaukee union members by picking the non-unionized Bradley Center for one of the shows. Outside the arena prior to the concert some local union members held a folk sing-along and distributed leaflets with union messages and the lyrics to "We Shall Overcome."
A spokesperson for the Milwaukee chapter of a union of musicians, actors and stagehands called the choice of venue "bafflingly ironic and somewhat infuriating."
3. Celebrity Vampire Madonna At some point all celebrities grow older, fall out of favor and no longer make the A-list. In trying to ward off the inevitable, Madonna looks like she's taking a different tack. Her response to her own impending descent seems to be to turn into a vampire of the celebrity kind. She's not sucking blood, but she is appropriating the life force out of younger trendier celebs. First, Madonna became Britney Spears' Svengali, introducing Spears to the Hollywood Kabbalah faith and convincing her to engage in a same sex TV smooch. But these days Britney is not as hot as she once was and a new "it" girl seems to have snagged her spot, at least when it comes to Madonna. Evidently the material girl has dumped Britney and is poised to suck the celebrity plasma out of Lindsay Lohan. Ostensibly the reason that Madonna changed girlfriends is because Britney is no longer a wholehearted Kabbalah follower. Lohan, on the other hand, says she's "looking into Kabbalah." Madonna reportedly now wants to record a duet with Lohan and wants to appear in a movie with the young starlet. The Left Coast Report advises Lindsay to slip a cross around her neck and down some extra hearty shrimp scampi.
4. Dixie Chick Natalie Maines' 'Patriotic' View In an article titled "How the Chicks survived their scrap with Bush," a writer named Adam Sweeting of the London Telegraph inadvertently revealed the way Natalie Maines really feels about her country.
In an interview with Sweeting, Maines summarily dismissed American patriotism and made an astounding admission. No wonder the Chicks have had to cancel shows because of sagging ticket sales. The Left Coast Report suspects that Larry King, "60 Minutes" and Time magazine will once again perform CPR on the trio's career.
5. Christian Coalition and MoveOn Join Hands In August 2005 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) changed the legal status of telephone companies by lifting restrictions that previously kept them from competing with cable companies. Their newfound freedom begins 12 months from the August 2005 decision. The time for implementation has just about arrived. Phone companies are readying themselves to add cable TV and beef up Internet access services in a way that they have previously been unable to. Along with the new avenues that are opening up to the phone companies comes a new term, one that sounds innocuous. It's called "Net neutrality" and involves an issue that will impact every single one of us. Net neutrality is short for network neutrality and it pertains to the Internet. Simply defined it means that the Internet has always been a place where everyone can enter the cyber territory. It is essential that it remain so. It's the way the Internet has always worked. The operation exemplifies one of the maxims of American jurisprudence: equal opportunity. But with the FCC changes going into effect there is a growing concern about the regulations' influence on the net, particularly the impact on the way in which services are processed and content is handled. This brings up two critical questions: Who will ultimately control the Internet and will content be a determining factor for access? Here are the digital dynamics. Corporate giants are looking to protect or expand their cyber-turf. The new net rules have created an ultimate tag team death match between AT&T and Verizon in one corner and Google and Microsoft in the other. The referee of the match is the government, which has long sought to gain a greater regulatory foothold over the Internet. Also the providers of high-speed Internet access want to create a multi-tiered system and charge more dollars for a faster connection. Think of this as a sort of Internet tollway. But are we to have different tiers of service and additional costs depending on content? Right now anyone who uses the Internet should be hearing alarm bells. The free marketplace of ideas, which was an original rationale behind the First Amendment, has up until now been fully realized in the Internet's display of variety, innovation and individual autonomy.
In addition to being an unparalleled bastion of free expression, the Internet has always been a place where access was in no way determined by content. Folks could hit the information superhighway regardless of the provisions in their backpacks, cash in their cars or junk in their trunk. What was taken along on one's journey was irrelevant. It's a romantic notion that became a reality. Anyone with a computer could be a content provider and distribute ideas, opinions, and artistic expression across the globe. On another bright note advantage, freedom on the Internet has yielded tremendous individual, corporate and national financial gain. Small businesses have been able to compete more effectively with larger ones, thus spurring economic growth. Interestingly, the notion of Net neutrality is currently transcending politics. Recently, two groups from opposite ends of the political spectrum combined forces on the issue. The Christian Coalition and MoveOn.org both endorsed legislation that would ensure that Internet content retains its equal footing. Phone and cable companies, though, which want to make decisions concerning what content gets on the Internet, claim to be preserving the free market. But in reality what has been set up is a highly distorted market, with the government regulatory action creating a cable and phone company duopoly. Still, the government is the arbiter of what can and cannot be done by these companies so it has the capacity to impose rules that include the perpetuation of Net neutrality. The Senate has been negotiating Net neutrality legislation in the aftermath of the House's refusal to pass a proposed neutrality amendment to the telecommunications bill, the same legislation that lets phone companies enter the cable TV business. If freedom on the Internet is to be preserved, it must be done with as little government involvement as possible. Unfortunately, current bills have looked to the FCC to enforce the neutrality provisions. Based on the FCC's track record, the innovation-suppressing agency is far from the ideal candidate to preserve neutrality. It would be far better for the final bill to follow the antitrust model and be enforced by the courts rather than the highly flawed FCC. Cutting to the chase, Net neutrality equals net freedom. The Left Coast Report says take up your digital arms and fight hard for this one.
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