Media By Design?

TBRNews.org has been posting a set of snippets which it claims are internal network news memos for the past several months. Whether they are real or not, and I'm skeptical, they make for some interesting reading.

During the middle of March, 2003, tbrnews received an email from a man who claimed to be a mid-level executive with a major American television network. He stated in this, and subsequent, emails that he was in possession of “thousands” of pages of in-house memos sent from his corporate headquarters in New York City to the head of the network’s television news department. He went on to say that these memos set forth directives about what material was, and was not, to be aired on the various outlets of the network.

Spaceward Ho

Here's a neat article in the May Atlantic Monthly about Sea Launch, the floating platform-based rocket launch company in Long Beach, California. (via ESPN's TMQ)

Headroom

This is an excellent piece of writing by Michael Lewis. The Tabitha mentioned in the article is Tabitha Soren. Yes that one.

When I came to, the first thing I noticed was that wherever I was I had never been there before. Flat on my back, an oxygen mask on my face, I looked up and saw a silver wall, some flashing lights, and a man in a dark blue jumpsuit, his back to me. The mask made it hard to call out. I tried to raise my arm but couldn't. My arms and my legs were strapped down. My head, too. My gaze was directed straight down at my bare chest and the several wires taped to it. My stomach, I could see, was caked with blood. My khakis, too, were a dull dry red. On the left side of my face I felt the warm pleasant drip-drip-drip of even more blood. Apparently, I'd been in some sort of accident: what sort? I had no idea. But I knew what I was meant to do, from TV shows. I wiggled my fingers, then my toes.

Totally Tarot

When memes collide: A Tarot deck with the eighties theme. You would think it would suck, but you would be wrong. (via Quiddity)