(A side note - according to Rolling Stone, Stereolab's new album has been number one on the college charts for the past two months.)
Also, there's the new film _The Insider_. _Slate_ today had an interesting confluence of pieces. On the hand, a review of _The Insider_:
"...What gives this version its kick--and what has made it fodder for columnists for almost six months--is that the people who betray the whistle-blower are among the most famous and powerful journalists in America: Mike Wallace and Don Hewitt, the co-anchor and the executive producer of 60 Minutes. If they could be pressured to "spike" a segment that they knew to be true, the film implicitly asks, how much chance do others have of breaking stories about corporate wrongdoing? And what about news personnel with a financial stake in their companies? Even journalists and editors known for their integrity tend to look the other way at their own companies' malfeasances when they hear words like 'stock options' and 'IPO.'"
http://www.slate.com/MovieReview/99-11-05/MovieReview.asp (it's below the review of _Being John Malkovich_)
On the other hand, you find all sorts of flacking for Microsoft, the website's owner. Some of Moneybox's thoughts:
"...4. Without sounding like a Microsoft shill here (and yes, Slate is published by Microsoft), the findings of fact do seem as if they're describing a world that doesn't quite exist anymore. The advent of Linux; the continued penetration of Java; the merger between AOL and Netscape; and the rapid growth in PDAs and non-desktop applications: All of these are phenomena that don't fit into the picture of a computing world in which domination of the PC operating system translates into domination elsewhere. Jackson's ruling was, of necessity, backward-looking, since he had to decide what had happened. But insofar as he remains guided by a PC-centric definition of computing, it's not clear whatever remedies he suggests will really conform to the way things are, rather than the way things were." http://www.slate.com/Code/Moneybox/Moneybox.asp?Show=11/5/99&idMessage=3960 _____________
Something that struck me about the recent elections in Russia - I can't remember what the elections were for - was the fact that different TV stations completely backed opposing candidaties. Imagine ABC spitting out pro-Shrub Bush propaganda, CBS totally backing Gore, NBC flacking for Bradley and FOX campaigning for Buchanan. Of course, in reality all of the above are shilling for the Republocrat monopoly.
counterhegemonizin' & arockin' in the postmodern/late modern, what-have-you world, Peter K.