‘Breitbart died, like all of us will, in darkness. But as a media persona he chose to also live there, and in the process has impelled countless others to throttle themselves into the abyss.’

‘Protests should do three things: they should express anger, through marches and targeted civil disobedience, at a particular political or social situation. They should give people the opportunity to see that other people, even people different from themselves, share that anger. And they should provide a vision of how life would be better if the world were different. Occupy Wall Street is doing all three of those things.’

My friend Niko Rivas interviewed me and wrote up this great column on my Lapwing EP.

“The thing I really want to impress on my students is that the commercial case for news only matters if the profits are used to subsidize reporting the public can see, and that civic virtue may be heart-warming, but it won’t keep the lights on, if the lights cost more than cash on hand. Both sides of the equation have to be solved.”

Dan Savage live-blogs the Weiner apology press conference.

“A reporter asks if Weiner was drinking or using drugs—if he has a problem—because only a man who has a drinking problem or a drug problem could get caught up in something like this. Do reporters know what men are like? (And lots of women too?) This desire to pathologize behavior that isn't sick—that is, indeed, very common and human and completely and instantly understandable—is itself pathological. Weiner does not have a problem. He has a computer. The whole world has Weiner's problem: same old horniness, brand new box.”

“The chillwave-cum-funk master gets a job he likes in Honolulu.”

This is pretty traditionalist but she's pretty right.

The always-great Matt Thompson on why episodic news content isn't as helpful as laying a contextual groundwork for a story and then letting readers know about events that happen in that framework.

"Everyone knows that Google is killing the news business. Few people know how hard Google is trying to bring it back to life, or why the company now considers journalism’s survival crucial to its own prospects."

Why the reaction to the iPhone leak reflects a much-weakened press and an Apple in bed with the authorities.

"That's some serious neanderthal action going on."

"An article with a ridiculous conspiracy theory propped up by selective and dishonest quoting. Presented to us by a publication that can’t be bothered to do elementary fact checking. This is the face of climate change denial."

"I’ve long assumed that if you followed the news, the stories behind the headlines would become plain."

A standard report on the duo, but finally some news! "They're halfway done with a new album, which might be released this year, but they're not rushing it."

Basically: Publishing solves a problem that no longer exists, and we don't need newspapers; we need journalism. Amen.

A new all-ages venue. Struggling financially, of course, but this is awesome. Idea: offer to do a weekly solo show.

Stylistic changes in the Obama White House. "I've got to do something about these plates. I'm not really a plates kind of guy."

"America should take a chance and make Barack Obama the next leader of the free world." A cautious but firm and thoughtful endorsement from an excellent publication.

"Animals are banned from the moon. House cats now kill more people than heart disease."

Where will you be? I'd not mind being here. "I want this to end when I'm on top, so I'm planning my final show on December 21, 2012. It's when the Mayan calendar ends. It's the day when solids become liquids and liquids become plasmas." "I want it to be a stage production, but one where the lines become blurry between reality and complete stage me...I want it to be miserable and equally fantastic. I want the best of both worlds."

Just like it says.

Indeed. (Just saving for reference.)

"Having volunteered for Iraq, Mark Daily was killed in January by an I.E.D. Dismayed to learn that his pro-war articles helped persuade Daily to enlist, the author measures his words against a family's grief and a young man's sacrifice."

The sad dumbing-down of one of the most visited and trusted news sources in the country.

"Matt, why don't you like Mitt Romney?" His perfect hair, obvi.

"The reaction was to the idea of the ban, not the effects of it. There was some internal hand-wringing. Some felt we were tinkering dangerously with the news. Whom would we ban next? Others loved the idea."