A Day of Reckoning at Conde Nast
We hear Wired had its own round of editorial layoffs today. What's going on at Conde Nast? A very bad Monday. In a very bad month. Let's review: WIRED: Wired.com laid off two top editors earlier this month. Today, tipsters tell us "at least six people" were canned at Wired—a mix of editorial and ad sales employees, including at least one veteran editor. Glamour: At least a half dozen editorial layoffs today. This follows at least seven business side layoffs there earlier this month, including a reality TV star. Lucky: At least four editorial layoffs today. Today seems to have been the day when the ax started swinging on the editorial side. The wave of layoffs over the last two weeks hit mostly business side staffers: Ten at W magazine, six at Vanity Fair, at least two at Self, at least ten at the golf magazines, six at Vogue, more than a dozen at Brides. If you don't work at the New Yorker, be nervous. UPDATE: Then again—a tipster tells us "at least 7 people let go from ad sales and creative services over the past 3 weeks" at the New Yorker. But uh, editorial side should be perfectly safe. [Pic: AP] MORE >>
Balloon Boy Just Wanted to Warn Us about the Lizard People
According to Balloon boy dad Richard Heene, Hillary Clinton is a shape-shifting reptilian humanoid. You may be surprised to learn that he is not the only one who believes this! Or you may not be surprised, if you've ever heard of David Icke. David Icke was an English sportscaster who, in the early '90s, became the national spokesman of the UK Green Party. And then he kinda went nuts. Or had a spiritual epiphany. Either one. In 1991 he announced, on television, that he was the son of God. His basic history is laid out in this wonderful video from Jon Ronson's documentary on Icke. In 1999, Icke decided that the Brotherhood, the one world government, and the Illuminati are all led, at the top, by lizard people. Literal lizard people. Non-human Reptilian humanoids from other planets who live in underground caverns. Icke has been accused of antisemitism, but Icke has always insisted — convincingly — that when he says "Lizard people" he literally means "lizard people." "Lizard people" do not represent Jews. Jews are humans! Lizard people are not! And everyone powerful either works for or is an actual lizard person. The Lizard people are seven feet tall and the come from a star called Alpha Draconis in the constellation of Draco They eat fear and negativity, which is why they make us make wars and stuff, all the time, and also 9/11. Also they are the ancient Sumerian gods who genetically engineered Homo sapiens to be their slaves. This theory takes a lot of very common conspiracies, involving The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the Federal Reserve and the British royal family, and then says the puppet-masters are aliens who drink the blood of blond, blue-eyed children. This makes more traditional conspiracy theorists, like Alex Jones, suspect that Icke is either a con man or actually literally a plant by the Illuminati whose job is the discredit the theorists who are really onto something big. But Icke still has thousands of followers, across the world. Many of them are in the western United States. One of them was Richard Heene. And according to Heene's former assistant Robert Thomas, Heene believed he could use an electrically charged weather balloon to attract UFOs. So maybe Heene planned on using the balloon to expose the UFOs of the Lizard People on live television? Or he's just going to use his Balloon Boy publicity to warn us about the Lizard People's planned 2012 apocalypse. Regardless of what it all meant, one thing is clear: the Lizard People are responsible for all of us staring at a balloon for a couple hours last week. Also: this is a great time to be viral marketing for the upcoming ABC miniseries event V! How about, yes, skywriting? Wonderful. That miniseries is about a race of aliens who pretend to be our friends but really they are lizard people bent on conquering the Earth and eating us. Part one of Ronson's documentary: MORE >>
Mad Men: The Night Betty Found the Box
Is it blue or is it yellow or is it both? When no one can agree not just on the color but how to see it, you're headed for a whole bunch of conflict. And secrets. And drama. Oh, my! Everything last night was about the disparity between how one character looks at something and how their opponents view the same object or situation differently. Whether it was Betty and Don both peering into the abyss of his box of secrets, Don and Missy looking at their love, or Peggy and Paul staring down an idea for the Western Union account. Sure, the secrets and lies are what is going to bite these people in the ass but it's that split vision that gets them there. As Don says, "Some people see things differently, and they don't want to." Poor, tortured Don. Betty and the Box: Finally, Betty gets into that locked door in Don's dresser, thanks to a set of loose keys in the dryer. It says something that all Betty wants to do is see past Don's hard shell to the truth that is lying underneath, and as soon as he slips up even once and leaves the keys to the drawer in his bathrobe, Betty knows exactly what the incriminating keys are for. But can she handle the look into Don's heart of darkness? Probably not. Earlier in the night, when the phone rings and there is no one on the other line, Sally gets all upset. "My goodness, Sally Draper, try not to take everything so personally," Betty snaps at her. Well, Betty is the last person who should be trying to teach people this lesson. Not only does she take it personally and think that the call is her spurned would-be lover Henry, but she also takes it personally when she opens the box. She's not shocked by the pictures of Don as a boy but named Dick, the deed to a house in California, or his purloined dog tags, she is shocked that he was married before. The one thing that Betty really cares about is the one thing that effects her. So like Betty. Of course, Betty sees this as a huge betrayal—and really, keeping all those things away from her truly is—but Don sees it as a way to survive. His new identity catapulted him up from his hillbilly roots to the WASPy station that Betty so much enjoys. And of course, she sees her Don as having gotten a divorce and never telling her, when it was the old, dead Don who was married to Anna, and not the man who is currently cheating on her with some psycho teacher. And as Betty waits up for her man to come home so that she can spring the trap on him, he doesn't take the bait, because he's sniffing around at some prey of his own above a garage across town. When Don doesn't return home, Betty puts the box back into the drawer, locks it and returns the keys. She tries to lay into Don the next day, but her sadness gets the best of her, and she sinks further into her hole of unhappiness. She is hiding everything away both literally and figuratively. It's fitting then that Betty has looked the best she ever has—an ice blue gown for an ice princess—for the Sterling Cooper... MORE >>
Everyone Shut Up About Health Care Reform for a While
Let's make a deal: no more talking about health care reform. For a while, anyway. A couple weeks, let's say. Because no one on TV and few people in newspapers can actually explain what's going on with it. Here's where we stand: right now Harry Reid is hammering out a final Senate bill that will probably include a public option. Tom Harkin is looking at taking some funding proposals from the House bill. No voting will happen until a final Senate bill is scored by the CBO, which will take a while. Eventually a Senate bill will be voted on and a House bill will be voted on and they will be merged and then we all get free government abortions. So that's it. There is nothing entertaining to report on, really. And when there is nothing entertaining to report on, like last August, the media just goes nuts. Death panels and angry teabaggers and lies and reporting on lies and reporting on reactions to lies. Polls! Tracking polls! Scary commercials about Canada! Scary news stories about England! Just nonsense. Because no one knows how to report on the legislative process. At all. There are no pictures or snappy quotes to go along with closed sessions of a couple lawmakers making compromises. Television news is structurally incapable of explaining the pros and cons of various funding provisions under consideration without just shouting about taxes. Everyone should just shut up for a while! The media can move on to climate change, baseball, Afghanistan, and all the other issues they're also incapable of tackling seriously. Serious and boring reports on the legislative process are still ok, as long as they appear in places like Roll Call. Wonky analyses of the details of the specific provisions that may or may not make it into the final bill are ok on the serious wonky blogs. But no more opining on Obama's wasted moment, or what he should do next, or critiques of his branding of the reform effort. No more town halls. No more Betsy McCaughey. No more comparisons to Clinton. Please. Just leave our legislators in peace for a while. Until the bill gets to the floor. Then everyone can freak out, again, with the calling your congressman and online petitions and what-have-you. MORE >>
Raj Rajaratnam's Awesome Insider Trading Adventure
Bernie Madoff is the financial criminal of the past. Billionaire hedge fund chief Raj Rajaratnam is the financial criminal of the moment! Slick back your hair, watch Wall Street, and forget Ponzi schemes—insider trading is back, big time! Raj Rajaratnam is the co-founder of the hedge fund Galleon Group. Last Friday, he was arrested and charged with the biggest insider trading scheme that Wall Street has seen in recent history. Let's briefly recap this spectacular criminal web! The SEC says that Rajaratnam used a vast web of inside informants at various companies to trade on them illegally using inside information. He and five others have been charged in this case, including two from another hedge fund and one IBM executive. Rajaratnam allegedly paid cash and favors to insiders in return for information, and made more than $20 million in profit on the ensuing trades. Rajaratnam himself (who claims he's innocent) is a Sri Lankan native who's been a fundraiser for causes there (including, allegedly, the Tamil Tigers, who are designated as terrorists by the US government). He's also the largest individual investor in Sri Lanka, and stocks there fell on the news of the charges. This is the largest insider trading case ever connected to a hedge fund. That makes the publicity-and-regulation-averse hedge fund world nervous. However, at least three former Rajaratnam colleagues are helping the government build its case against him. Incriminating telephone transcripts? This case has 'em! The best are tapes of Danielle Chiesi of New Castle Funds (pictured), also charged with insider trading in the case. She sounded less than innocent: Robert Moffat, a top IBM exec, was also arrested in the case, for leaking inside info. His arrest reportedly caused "cheering in the halls" by unionized workers. Anyhow, Rajaratnam's out on $100 million bail and he's supposed to be addressing Galleon employees in the office today, so be sure to email us and let us know what he says! MORE >>
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