Today in Dumb Media: Buzzfeed's embarrassingly visible social disease Benny Johnson posted an article last night consisting entirely of anonymous death threats against Edward Snowden. Citing between 0 and 4 anonymous sources (there's no way to tell really) Johnson, purporting to speak for "intelligence community circles" and "intelligence workers," fails to provide any new information or move the Snowden/NSA story forward an inch. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and they're both labeled "Fire Benny Johnson," and it doesn't matter which one you take, just take one as soon as possible.
While we're firing the worst of our media scum, let's revive NASA's manned space program by firing David Brooks from a cannon pointed at the moon. The problem, argues Brooks today in a master-class on using weasel-words to erase the lived reality of anyone weaker than you, is not that most people are poor and getting poorer. It's just an issue of "social mobility for the less affluent," and "a strong correlation between the fraying of social fabric and low economic mobility." Poverty is merely "a secondary issue and a statistical byproduct." Our newspaper of record's opinion columnist, everyone. Well done.
Ex-Slate tech writer Farhad Manjoo, who just moved over to the Wall St. Journal a few months ago, is going to the NYT to take over from David Pogue in February. With drivel like this that he's now producing for Yahoo!, Pogue set the bar so low that Manjoo's first job will be to dig down underneath the Times sub-basement to find it.
Yesterday Jezebel offered a $10,000 bounty for unretouched pictures of Lena Dunham from her February Vogue cover shoot. They got some, and Jezebel is shocked, shocked to find Photoshopin this establishment. The Wire provides context, quoting Diablo Cody: "This is total mean-girl shit masquerading as feminism."
I will never, ever read this Storify of a Twitter argument about Snowden between consistently wrong human egg Marc Andreessen and David Sirota, Glenn Greenwald et al but I include it out of a misguided sense of tab completism.
Please Tell Me This Week in Tech is Finally Over: The social network nobody uses is now available for the phone no one has. This Week in Drones. You couldn't ask for a better metaphor for the mindset of mobile phone networks than T-Mobile and AT&T squabbling over who gets to haveMacklemore. That creepy contact lens thing from Sherlock episode 3? Of course Google's already working on it. Using an ATM won't let you time travel back to 2002 for much longer. Jack Dorsey imagines a wild, futuristic world where things like coupons or loyalty rewards could be printed right oncash register receipts. Amazing. ~B E E S~ I'm pretty sure one of these articles is fiction but I can't tell which one. I'm worried that gross Reddit gun-fetishists are actually having sex with their guns.
Today in Twitter: Elon Green on the many joys of blocking. Megan Garber on the farewell fave. The GOP demonstrates its social media savvy. For a reported "low 8 figures," top personal-brand journo Ezra Klein launches an exciting new Twitter account. This is Not a Subtweet.
Today in ¯_(ツ)_/¯:: Airport security found a pipe bomb in a teen's bag, so they apologized and tried to give it back to him. The punctuation was amazing: to begin with. Teddy Bear Paradise threatens to kill the President. "The Best Time I Learned My Last Name Means Blow Job." Mein Kampfmaybe not topping the ebook charts (read the comments too). Scientists discover doge evolved from wolfe.
Today's Movie: THX-1138
Today's Song: Lullabye renditions of Nickleback: "How You Remind Me"
~My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, tabs) when I was three...~
I'm so excited to announce that next week I'm heading to New York for a few days and Paul Ford, one of my absolute favorite writers, will be stepping in to guest-Tab Mon-Wed. It should be a treat. If you're in NYC, I'll be at IRL Club on Monday evening. Find me and say hi, it'll be awkward and great. As usual, Today in Tabs is brought to you by Newsweek and email, and you can find me on Twitter @rustyk5 and @TodayinTabs.
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