On Comcast tonight: The premiere of Woodstock: Three Days of Peace & Music (The Director's Cut)in HD. It's four hours long.

Or, you can watch former President Clinton address Netroots Nation on C-Span. He's just about to take the stage.

Heads-up for this weekend: 150,000 attendees are expected at the 18th annual Seattle Hempfest, billed as the 'World's Largest Annual Pot 'Protestival'.

Or you can discuss anything else you're finding interesting today.

This is the type of response I would expect from the Media:

As to the emerging meme that the media is playing up this sensationalism while ignoring the real story — the horrific plight of women in Africa — it’s nonsense. Of course the latter is much more important. But it’s not news.

Absorb that sentiment for a moment. And then consider it is NOT from a member of the Media, but rather from James Joyner who then expands on this thought in responding to this comment - "Its only news because you say so:"

Well, me and every editor and news producer on the planet.

Joyner does not recognize that is in fact the problem - every Media type thinks that way. It is the classic response to media criticism - that's just the way it is. 'The way it is' is atrocious and unacceptable. That is the point of the criticism.

Speaking for me only

NYTimes' Judith Warner:

[A] peculiarly gendered form of trivializing scorn still tags our secretary of state. Just two weeks ago, The Washington Post had to remove from its Web site an ostensibly humorous video sketch by two of its prominent political journalists that juxtaposed a picture of Clinton’s face with a bottle of derogatorily named beer. This sort of thing bodes badly for the country’s ability to treat her — and the issues she most passionately champions — with appropriate respect.

“We have our own work to do at home,” [Melanne Verveer, the State Department’s new ambassador at large for global women’s issues,] told me. “We trivialize the importance too often of these issues: the ‘women’s issue’ — you put it in quotes, that little category over there, the box you check. What we have to do is realize these are the issues; if we want societies to prosper and if we want our own security, we have to raise the status of women.” . . . Can all this complexity attract — much less sustain — the attention of the public?

Maybe — if we stop viewing everything Clinton does as entertainment.

This piece seems directed at Maureen Dowd.

Speaking for me only

Not going to Pittsburgh for Netroots Nation? You can follow along at home in real time.

• Watch the live stream of convention coverage, generously sponsored by SEIU, or on Facebook while you chat with other attendees.

• You can participate from Second Life with Netroots Nation in Second Life. This year features an interactive session and caucus with real-world attendees.

• Follow on Twitter via their account or the #nn09 stream and Facebook.

[More...]

CNN President Jon Klein is a foolish man and has been for some time. But he is certainly painting himself into a corner regarding Lou Dobbs. Via Steve Benen and MediaBistro, Klein reportedly wrote a message to his producers that said the following:

CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein asked his show producers to avoid booking talk radio hosts. "Complex issues require world class reporting," Klein is quoted as saying, adding that talk radio hosts too often add to the noise, and that what they say is "all too predictable."

Of course Klein must know he is raising the Dobbs issue here. Is he trying to get Dobbs to resign? Or is he really not aware of the import of his words?

Speaking for me only

It's been 40 years since the summer of '69. The year of Charles Manson and the Sharon Tate/LaBianca Murders.

The summer of Woodstock: Check out The Woodstock Memories Project, a gallery of photos, memories, news articles and more by the Poughkeepsie Journal and Footnote.com. Some previously unreleased performances are here.

A few more favorites below:

Netroots Nation kicks off August 13 in Pittsburgh, PA. If you are thinking of going, here's another reason: They just announced that Former President Bill Clinton will there opening night.

Why have a Netroots Nation with no elections on the immediate horizon? As they say, to make sure we get the change we voted for, and to assist progressives with grass-roots efforts as the focus changes from electoral politics to governance.

If you'd like to go, you can sign up here.

A small plane and helicopter collided today above the Hudson River. Both went down. The massive media coverage begins, Mediaite says look to Twitter for eye witness accounts and pics.

What I'm seeing on Twitter: 8 dead, including 1 child. Mayor Bloomberg says effort has changed from rescue to recovery. ("Pilot plus 2 others incl child in small aircraft; 6 Italian tourists + pilot in helicopter.")[More...]

Wingnut Dan Riehl on President Obama:

He's an idiot. And a self-centered one, too. And that is always a dangerous combination. In a POTUS, it could be a disaster.

Indeed, it WAS a disaster. But the extreme right wing view of George W. Bush was (is?) this:

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

Oh BTW, Andrew Sullivan is still a sexist.

Speaking for me only

Victim is such a subjective term. In the John Edwards/Rielle Hunter saga, who's the victim of their tryst? Rielle? John? Elizabeth? The baby? The Democrats?

With Cameron and Michael Douglas, did being the son of a divorced celebrity dad contribute to his becoming a meth user, or is his famous father the victim because even if he did everything possible to help his now-adult son, his privacy is blown for months to come as he inevitably undergoes the glare of the media spotlight?

Maybe everyone's a victim. Or thinks they're one.

I'm headed out to dinner on this lovely Friday evening. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Think Progress has the round-up, but Podhoretz takes the prize:

[N]ow that they are out of jeopardy, Ling and Lee deserve to be held accountable, at least in the realm of public opinion, for the unthinkably bad judgment they displayed in their preposterous, vainglorious, and astoundingly naive venture. Possessing some fantasy about presenting an inside look at North Korea on an justifiably unwatched (because unwatchable) cable channel called Current TV, they thought they could sneak undetected into a Gulag state, film some footage with a DV camera, and then sneak back out to the hosannas of the Peabody Award committee. This is something they chose to do and were given license to attempt by their employers, and for which they paid a horrific, far too horrific, a price. That must be the case as well for Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, the co-owners of Current TV, who have doubtless existed in a state of terrible “what have I done” anxiety about this since the arrests.

Oookaaaaay.

Speaking for me only

Kevin Drum writes about James Joyner's post on there being enough lunatics to go around:

James Joyner admits that there are lots of conservative lunatics running around these days:

But here’s the thing: There’s plenty of crazy to go around. Remember Bush Derangement Syndrome? The 9/11 conspiracy theorists who thought Bush and Cheney were in on the whole thing? The Diebold plot to steal the 2004 election? . . .

Now, obviously there's some truth to this, but . . . The Diebold folks couldn't even get a hearing at Daily Kos, let alone anywhere more mainstream. The 9/11 truthers have always been a tiny band.

(Emphasis supplied.) Kevin has this right. Indeed, it went beyond Truthers and Diebolders, who were not allowed to post at Daily Kos when I was there (I'll leave the primary wars for another time.) It was so for all lunatic conspiracy theories. More . .