In 2004, in response to a question about the Swift Boat liars, Ted Koppel said, "We don't report the truth; we just report what people say."

The Internet, of course, now does that just fine. And thus we see the destruction of what remains of the American press--who needs 'em? Really?

Bloggers, amateur and semi-pro, will give us all the opinion we need. A few remaining press services will tell us what people say and do.

And the press disappears, serving no useful function--through their own choice.

The only thing important about the Oscars is the clothes that get trotted out for the event.

You folks?

Who you mean, "you folks"?

It's a shame that the Right just doesn't get it in this country.

Identity politics aren't made by the oppressed group. They're made by oppressors, and the fact of oppression.

Take the Irish, for example (I'm largely Irish in ancestry). When they first came over, they banded together and ran an identity politics that puts current ones to shame.

Why? The answer to that is easy; it had a lot to do with "No Irish need apply" signs, "No Irish or dogs," etc.

When that stuff disappeared, a lot of Irish identity politics did too. Not all--in part because the oppression of Irish continued to be an issue--just not here, that's all.

So if you want identity politics to disappear, stop being members (or tolerating!) whites-only country clubs, the CCC, and the like.

Without victimization, there are no victims. Without oppression, there are no oppressed. Without racism, there's damned little identity politics.

Gerson writes, "And would the civil rights movement have come at all if African American religion had stayed 'in the pew'?"

We've seen this argument from conservatives before, equating the African American connection with religion and civil rights and the right-wing Evangelicals connection of religion and their political positions.

It's a simplistic, wrong-headed analogy. Let's take a moment to see why.

First, the two very different political positions. African Americans and their allies in the 50s and 60s were working to extend rights. Evangelicals, with the arguable exception of abortion, have worked to deny rights (see, for example, their position on homosexuals, or non-Christian religions). While it's true that AA Christianity was used as part of the intellectual structure in the argument to extend rights, it was by no means the only element in that structure, and the structure would have survived if that part of it had been removed entirely (see, for example, the Enlightenment, and the "Rights of Man"). Remove the Christianity of Evangelicism, and very little survives in the structure of their arguments; what is the argument against extending rights to homosexuals, for example, save for a "the Bible says so" argument?

And then there's the use of the churches. The churches in the Civil Rights movement were used as the basis for a larger political organization that included a number of non-Christian, non-black folk. The churches in the Evangelical movement are identical with the political organization; they're not used as a foundation for a larger movement, they are the movement, and their movement is one to make not only the values but also the specific beliefs of their creed those of the entire nation.

It's a shallow and historically ignorant (often, I suspect, deliberately ignorant) argument to assert an equivalence between the AA civil rights movement and religious involvement and the Right and Evangelicism today. It's fundamentally anti-intellectual, in the sense that intellectuals spend their lives trying to discern the distinctions and similarities of things and processes, rather than to simply make superficial claims.

It wasn't crack, it was meth that the two smoked.

....like, why did Microsoft decide to get into the music player/music store business in the first place?

Or, why does rm2grow think it proves something that Windows runs better on his new PC (made by Apple and costing a huge premium) rather than his old PC (made by who-knows-whom?). Vista runs wonderfully on my new PC hardware (made by Dell and costing a lot, lot less than the equivalent hardware made by Mac).

Quick, ask a Mac person to name the operating system made by Microsoft. Now, ask a Microsoft person to name the operating system made by Apple. Even if he/she gets it right, he/she will probably get it wrong: the answer is "Unix."

Calling a Zune an iPod is the sign of Apple's success? Is this why all photocopiers are now made by Xerox, and all tissues are made by Kleenex? Losing control of your brand name is one of the steps to brand equivalence; if all music players are ipods, who cares if you buy an actual iPod--unless, of course, you're a 14-year-old teenager of either gender.

Finally, why do both Apple and Microsoft ignore other huge markets that are out there? And why can't you cut and paste on an iPhone--in 2009?

Inquiring minds want to know!

>what it (i.e., that Vista runs better on my Mac than on any PC I've ever owned) proves is exactly what I said it proves -- that I (like millions of others) have gladly, and permanently, switched from PC to Apple, and ain't looking back.

No, what it proves is that one PC runs better than another PC.

If "PC" means anything, it means a box that can run Windows. Apple makes a box with an Intel processor and nVidia graphics that can run Windows; how is that different from most other PCs?

Let's see: smoke monsters, mysterious machines and violet lights, the dead appearing and disappearing, a narrative that has always been unhinged from the temporal, the Others, the Dhrama initiative, mini-subs, buses running down troublesome exs at the drop of a hat....and it's time travel that proves the straw for you?

Get a grip, HH. Fiction is always disconnected from reality. That's what makes it fiction. Hold on tight and enjoy the ride.