May 1, 2006

Recycling the leftovers from the "Person of the Year" analysis.

Time Magazine has another one of its lists: 100 People Who Shape Our World. It always seems as though they're just begging us to bitch about the three or four people who least belong on the list. I'm not going to Technorati this list and see all the bloggers who are exclaiming about Matt Drudge and Arianna Huffington.

Re Drudge: "With 10 million readers daily, Drudge, 39, has paved a generous path for the blogs; without his example, semipro scribes might not have unearthed 'Rathergate.'" Does that sound like irksome, backward Time-ese writing? Actually, Ana Marie Cox wrote that.

The writer of the post on Arianna eschewed Time-ese:
No doubt because of my (persuasive) prowess and Arianna's intellectual openness, she switched, becoming a lefty. With her indefatigable persistence, resourcefulness and good humor, Arianna, 55, has gone from ambitious project to ambitious project with varying degrees of success, finding herself the proprietor of the widely read, hugely influential liberal blog Huffington Post. None of this would have happened were it not for me. And it seems oddly ironic that it is Arianna, not I, who has been named one of TIME's 100 most annoying (sorry, influential) people. Arianna should be writing about me.
Me, Al Franken.

12 comments:

MadisonMan said...

Arianna should be writing about me.

Me, Al Franken.


Oh yes, I heard the echo of the old SNL skit in there too. Al Franken must have looked very old 25+ years ago during the Franken and Davis sketches, because he looks so similar now. He has good aging genes, I guess. Or maybe my memory is faulty.

Al Maviva said...

Shorter conservative blogosphere: the mainstream media sucks. Bush ain't conservative. Haa haa - when the car only steers left, eventually it hits the ditch.

Shorter liberal blogosphere: conservatives suck. The U.S. is basically a police state, we're finished. The democrats are wayyyyyy too conservative for us.

Shorter HuffPo: We Hollywooders arr so smert. You rid staters sux. Hey, hoo let Greg Gutfield in hear?

Anonymous said...

Al is great. I love Al, his is a wise voice of sanity. He's really a centrist that loves America, smart, and funny. And you can find him locally here, and you will find that with his characteristic humor, he will debunk the lies you believe and propagate.

KXXM Madison, WI

Anonymous said...

Two suggestions:

One, since I perceive that the practice of law is about doing good research, you could take on his book (lies, and the lying liars, or the truth with jokes, and put it to your class to perform the same research, and verify it or debunk it.

Two, since you feel strongly that the NSA wiretaps were probably legal and that most of America is for them, why not try to go on Al Franken's show and discuss your opinion of the legal issues and the reasoning behind your belief that most American's are pro-wiretapping.

I think either of these would be something you could do, and something that would be very educational for you and your students.

MadisonMan said...

I really wondered as I read the 100 bios -- did Tom Cruise actually write? Did Laura Bush? Did Al Gore? Or were they handed something written by someone else and sign off on it?

Freeman Hunt said...

Why go on Franken's show to discuss something? Why not just discuss something over coffee with him? Since there will be at least a couple tables within earshot, you'd have the same number of listeners without having to hang out in a sound booth.

SippicanCottage said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Drill SGT said...

SippicanCottage said...
Sometimes it seems to me that the persons most poorly equipped with cogent advice are the most liberal with offering it.


Is that pearl of wisdom both a general comment and a specific response on multiple levels? :)

stoqboy said...

While I hated Al Franken on SNL, I believe he has a good radio personality. Even though I disagree with most of what he says, I found his show entertaining.

Sloanasaurus said...

I laughed my A$$ off when I read this top 100 list.

My favorite was this description:
"....Meet some global icons—actors, politicians, athletes, entertainers and others—who are using their influence to do the right thing...:

Included in this are people like Al Gore and Katie Couric. Couric and Gore are not doing the right thing. In fact Couric and Gore are abhorred by 1/2 of America. That is not right.

Unknown said...

I transformed the world this afternoon at about 2:20 PM CST, and Franken wasn't anywhere to be seen.

I'll undoubtedly have to do it again tomorrow, maybe twice.

vbspurs said...

I really lost respect for these types of "Person of the Year", or "Most Important Folks in Hollywood" type of lists, when I heard that Rachael Ray made a:

100 Most Influential People on the Planet

Rachael Ray? WTF.

Cheers,
Victoria