Fraud, Magic and Sex

The Times was a good read this morning. A lot of it was like a wire service, which is a good thing. I like straight information. The trouble is that so many other places offer the same information.

The two big exceptions are on the top-level web page: Madoff and the Egyptian Internet.

The Madoff interview from a federal prison is like the best of the famed television interviews, where the subject gets to talk and we watch. It's probably a character flaw of mine, but I have never cared for these. They are frustrating because no one is challenging the subject. I want to shout out my questions, but they can no more be heard by a computer monitor than a television screen. At this point the Madoff story cries out for perspective and interpretation of the crime and punishment, of the man and the system in which he flourished. The writer, Diana Henriques, tells us the interview is for a book, and that is fair enough, but so far, it's a tease.

Still, the story is a news coup, of course, and as such it was at once picked up by the wires. In that is the essential dilemma for news sellers and news consumers. The reporter here is paid by the Times. But her prison interview with the convict, an exclusive, is almost immediately picked up by the wires, the television stations, everyone sees essentially the same thing at the almost the same time, except for the poor buyers of the early paper editions of the Washington Post and others. When the HuffPost screams its headline in giant letters, it is just an extension of the wires and television stations have always done. It doesn't matter that the HuffPost sticks in a parenthetical suggestion to read the original.

From Prison, Madoff Says Banks ‘Had to Know’ of Fraud

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If the Internet were handed down from heaven for mankind to have a more convenient way to shop and stay in touch with friends, it would be a miracle, and there would be a serious question about how the Egyptian government managed to shut it down.

The trouble is that after some heavy breathing in the beginning of the article, the writers actually explain the Internet quite well as a man-made artifact, a gigantic network of fiber optic cables. Even if you don't have an electrical engineer's understanding of data transmission, you should be able to grasp the idea that the owners of these cables can disconnect them. This task might require effort, but it's not exactly mysterious.

As the article explains, Internet traffic is often restricted by governments that don't want people seeing certain things or ISPs that want to help the movie and music industry stop piracy. That's harder and it certainly happens.

The mystery in all this how rebellion managed to go on despite this total internet blackout for almost a week. That would contradict the daily drumbeat that it was a Facebook and Twitter rebellion.

Egypt Leaders Found ‘Off’ Switch for Internet

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Moving off the front page, things get dicey.

In the always fruitful Dining section, we are told about the sorrows of gossip writers who have to watch starlets eat fattening food. You see, there's a trend among the glossies to discuss what actresses eat, and it's been going on for a year, which is like, you know, forever.

The story reminds me of the devilish television lawyers who blurt out blatantly prejudicial questions only to have them stricten from the record. It provides the details of who eats peanut butter ice cream to an audience that wouldn't be caught dead reading a story about what actresses eat or don't eat.

It seasons this with asides of eyebrows raised beyond botox limits with passages this: "journalists who write about celebrities probably can’t be blamed for succumbing to an amateur lesson in gastronomic semiotics." Mmmm. That's a mouthful.

The time you see a bone-thin actress with a bulging bicep bigger than yours (if you're a guy) or your husband's, your brother's and your father's all added together, please remember that comes from six hours a day of punishment in a gym, followed by a few pieces of straw on a plate. You don't really need a newspaper to tell you that, do you?

For Actresses, Is a Big Appetite Part of the Show?

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