Categories: jBlogs

'Media Be Dead' and Other Mild Observations

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May 24, 2012, 9 AM ET

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MEDIA BE DEAD

Almost 200 years ago, French painter Paul Delaroche declared, allegedly, "From today painting is dead," after he had learned about Daguerre's discovery that exposing an iodized silver plate in a camera creates a lasting image if the latent image on the plate is developed and fixed. I imagine Johannes Gutenberg or someone close to him might have advised folks to give up handwriting, it was going to be strictly print from now on. And nowadays everybody is talking about the paperless office and, what's worse, the imminent death of the entire print media. But our friend Daniel Greenfield of Sultan Knish fame, believes he's seeing signs that the very institution of our popular media is going bust. Them's fighting words! The Last Days of the Media There is no news business anymore, just media trolls looking for a traffic handout, feeding off manufactured controversies that they create and then report on. Magazines and sites struggling to stay alive while preaching to a narrow audience which likes essays by leftist cranks and mocking pictures of conservatives. And they're not alone; any magazine that still covers politics, covers it in the same exact way. There are house-style differences between the New Yorker, which still features its trademark cartoons, and Vanity Fair and Esquire, and Time and Newsweek, but they are all basically the same. The same essays repeating the same views for the same audience; all of them fighting for that small slice of urban yuppie audience which DVR's Mad Men, has Michael Chabon novels on the shelf that it hasn't read yet and is forty percent gay. Daniel Greenfield of Sultan Knish

SOME THINGS I CAN ANSWER

Thinking Jew Girl wants to know: Who Paid For The Asifa? Renting out Citi Field cost over $1,000,000. Each ticket cost $10. Multiply that by a maximum of 40,000 people and you have $400,000 total. That means that someone had to dish out $600,000 minimum to make this gathering happen. And she speculates: Could it be that the company which created internet filters paid this sum as an investment in advertising? Not exactly. The event cost $850,000 the Citi Field rental. With the cost of promotion and logistics it is estimated to have cost nearly 2 million dollars. Back in Tibbi’s Roundup of May 8, I dealt with it. The principal donor was Mr. Hershel Schreiber, owner of the famous photographic retailer in Manhattan, B&H. In other words, a fortune that was made almost exclusively because and through the Internet, is now being spent to try and curb the evil influence of the Internet. When some chickens come home to roost, the take down the whole house…

YOU SUBMIT, TIBBI POSTS, NO QUESTIONS ASKED

Sharon Altshul of The Real Jerusalem Streets, a blog devoted to showing what life is really like in Jerusalem, invites you to check out her photo essay "Jerusalem Day – 45 Years United." Nice images, good notes, worth a peek. I'm enclosing a sample, hope Sharon is OK with it:

Geffen, my Israeli friend’s beautiful daughter, performs at the 'Space and Aviation ORT High School' My American friend and his Israeli wife made aliyah from Michigan several years ago and have been ecstatic in their new surroundings, despite the constant terrorist attempts by Arabs to drive them from their land. Geffen and her musical group performed at the main ceremony of the city of Maale-Edomim (near Jerusalem) commemorating Israel Memorial Day for its lost soldiers. She is in 11th grade and she and her musical group represented her high school “Space and Aviation Ort High-School” which is under the sponsorship of the Israel Air Force. Twenty-thousand people attended the ceremony – many of whom lost a family member in the Arab wars or as a result of terrorist attacks. Jerome S. Kaufman, Israel Commentary Go check out the video. Sweet girl.

WHEN IT ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY HAS TO BE DONE ON TIME

The 60 Second Guide to Shavuos The foundation of Judaism is that there is a G-d, who is completely spiritual. G-d created both a physical and spiritual world. The centerpiece of creation is man who is composed of a physical body and a spiritual soul. Our collective purpose is to transform the world into a unified G-d connected spiritual world. 20 seconds down, 40 more to go, good luck! Seriously, though, check out Mark Frankel's attempt to explain complex stuff in a very short time. And now, here is Danny Kay reciting in 30 seconds the names of 50 Russian composers:

TRUTH AND IDEOLOGICAL TRUTH

Chaya no-last-name wrote a wonderful response to all the critics of last Sunday's Asifa, on xoJane. It's hard hitting, eloquent and sincere. It's also accompanied by a huge, magnificent image of a Jewish bride in the midst of an obviously Chasidic group of women. And while I urge you to go read the thing, I also want you to look for the copy of Chaya's story with the gorgeous image on Yated Neeman, or Ami Magazine, or Mishpucha. And then when you give up, help me in thanking God for the Jewish Press online, where we can still be women without ridiculous obliterations. Chaya stressed that 1. We are not imprisoned, 2. We like ourselves the way we are. And most of us are happy, 3. We find our husbands attractive, 4. We have been happily (minor expletive) for millennia. Jews never had the concept of "original sin." 5. Mikveh is awesome. We don't go to the mikveh because we're "dirty." Now, I can agree that there must be many, many women, for whom some of the above are always part of their reality, but I find it hard to believe that all of us have all of the above in our lives. If Chaya is sincere about those points, I'd like a lock of her hair for my good luck charm… What Women's Media Needs to Know About Chassidic Women Hi. I'm Chaya, and I am a Chassidic Jewish woman. I am also a media professional with a degree in Women's Studies from a large, very liberal university (magna cum laude, baby!). In the past few days, I've been reading the backlash against "the asifa," a recent mass meeting of religious Jewish men meant to draw a few boundaries around Internet use in our homes (meaning religious Jewish homes; not your house). Chaya, xoJane

CRUEL SHUL

Thank you, Ymedad, for the cute, and a little scary, clip from an 1852 Baltimore synagogue rule book about all the things we're not to do in shul. The really scary thing is that the passage reads like it was written this morning (except the shawing of tobacco – that's chewing to you and me). Check out: In Honor of the Upcoming Two Day Shabbat/Holiday