Soup

Mousavi's facebook calls for national strike in Iran.

"But in the Jackson story, there really is no news. He’s still dead. All that follows is discussion and wouldn’t we really rather discuss it with our friends than Al Sharpton?"

charitini:

This is not only silly, it’s factually incorrect. There are all sorts of issues arising from Michael Jackson’s death: Who gets custody of the kids? How does the estate get distributed? What happens to that Beatles catalog? What happense to his unreleased music? What’s up with that second autopsy? What about that doctor?

There are secondary stories too: How much does death help an artist’s bottom line? How much money will AEG Live, the organizers of that 50-date concert tour, have to eat? Why does the House of Representatives have so much free time?

All this, incidentally, is without even mentioning the media stories to come out of this: Too much coverage? What are the ratings? How will the magazine covers sell? What is Quincy Jones doing in Luxembourg, anyway?

Also, this makes no sense: “All that follows is discussion and wouldn’t we really rather discuss it with our friends than Al Sharpton?” I dunno, did our friends know Michael Jackson since they were teenagers? Did they collaborate on issues of race in the music industry? Are our friends meeting with the Jackson family to discuss memorial events? Sharpton may not be the best example of an unbiased source, given his own agendas here, but it’s clear that he has a lot of context and history to offer. More generally, obviously it’s more interesting to watch a discussion between experts and/or people who have information to provide; that’s why cable news and discussion shows exist. (And please don’t brandish declining ratings info at me here; it’s clear that for topics of big interest, people are tuning in.)

Anyhow. So that’s something else I disagree with Jeff Jarvis about.

The King of Twitter [BuzzMachine]

p.s. Instead of buying What Would Google Do, you should totally just talk to your friends about Google.

p.p.s. I do agree with him 100% on this, though.

I find it unfortunate that major networks will spend time talking about this rather than some pretty important things going on in the world right now, namely in Honduras and Iran.

I think that was the point Jarvis was trying to make, but he’s not very good at making it. There is a lot of news to the Jackson story, which unfortunately is distracting us from what really matters.

14% of the web still uses IE6.

They’ll never see this post.

Paleontologists brought to tears, laughter by Creation Museum

kaytee:

For a group of paleontologists, a tour of the Creation Museum seemed like a great tongue-in-cheek way to cap off a serious conference.

But while there were a few laughs and some clowning for the camera, most left more offended than amused by the frightening way in which evolution — and their life’s work — was attacked.

“It’s sort of a monument to scientific illiteracy, isn’t it?” said Jerry Lipps, professor of geology, paleontology and evolution at University of California, Berkeley.

My favorite excerpt:

The museum argues that the fossil record has been misinterpreted and that Tyrannosaurus rex was a vegetarian before Adam and Eve bit into that sin-inducing apple.

Says Daryl Domning of Howard University:

“This bothers me as a scientist and as a Christian, because it’s just as much a distortion and misrepresentation of Christianity as it is of science.”

After visiting the museum’s website, I cannot express how floored I am that something like this exists in the 21st century.

Vibe Magazine To Close Down Immediately

blaaargh:

Vibe, one of the nation’s leading popular music magazines, is closing immediately, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Word leaked to music and media news Web sites early this afternoon, and the spokeswoman, Tracy Nguyen, said the Vibe staff would be formally notified in a meeting at 2 p.m. She said she did not know how many people would be laid off as a result of the closure.