(Graphic h/t to Mike Tidmus)
So when will we see the Twin Towering Infernos theme ride at Disney? ABC/Disney obviously invests heaviliy in the notion that fantasy trumps reality. That's why this "Path to 9/11" fiasco came from a wingnut cabal through the entertainment division, without involvement of the news division. Though I can't say I'm confident any involvement by the authors of The Note would have made any difference, given how eager Disney is to flout its own published business ethical policies. My guess is the following lying theme park fantasyland bullshit really lights up their plethysmographs over at The Note:
Well, there's the Disney fantasy, and then there's the reality:
Mickey has been stinking like a bad, old diaper for a long time, and we've been too focused on the fantasy Disney sells to notice. Those days are over. And just for shits and giggles, let's look at when ABC News spiked a story about Disney's pedophile problems. No doubt the Clenis was more important to fondle back in those days (1998):
The December-January issue of Brill's Content has a detailed report by Elizabeth Stevens on this story and why it was killed. Inspired by a book titled Disney: The Mouse Betrayed, by Peter and Rochelle Schweizer, the story was the work of ABC's veteran investigative reporter Brian Ross. It had been approved by high-level news executives and ABC's lawyers. Stevens says it was "well-sourced" and that it "met the standards of fairness and reportorial backup commonly found in investigative television-news magazine pieces." According to Stevens, the four-month investigation by Ross and his producer, Rhonda Schwartz, turned up new evidence showing that Disney had a worse pedophile problem than the other theme parks that were examined. Disney also had a bad reputation among Florida law-enforcement officials, who were critical of Disney's failure to run criminal-background checks of new employees and not always assisting their investigations of crimes on Disney property.
Ross's story told of a 7-year-old British girl who recently was molested by Jeffrey Bise, a puppet vendor at Disney World. The girl's uncle, a British police officer, confronted Bise and reported the incident to Disney security, who filled out a report and gave the family a few cheap souvenirs. They tried to dissuade the uncle from calling the police. He called them. They came, questioned Bise and got his confession. He is now in prison, no thanks to Disney.
I have frequently taken part in conference calls with DC Democrats where I and others have pleaded with big names to join us in bashing the establishment media for its right wing bias. These media conglomerates are not our friends; they're selling lies. We need to point this out and campaign openly, jointly against establishment media conglomerates, we've argued.
We never got anywhere. But now ABC and Disney have managed to get the big name Dems on Capitol Hill, Bill Clinton, the netroots and the grassroots all working together to expose the right wing bias of establishment media. I really want to thank ABC/Disney for that.
They've not only done a good bit to help us further our development as a movement, they's put some things on the table that were not getting enough attention, like the so-called broadcast flag, copyright overprotection for Mickey Mouse and media consolidation itself. With Democrats on a path to gain potential control of one or both houses of Congress, I want to thank Disney for helping us to accomplish what could otherwise have been an uphill slog toward getting Democrats on the Hill to give real consideration to these issues, even to hold hearings. Oh, and let's go after the broadcast licenses of local ABC affiliates. Hey, politics is local.
Meanwhile, they've done their deliberating about this weekend's historical fraud at ABC/Disney, and have apparently concluded, at the time of this writing, to stick to their Lugers and run the damn thing. Such is life in the bunker. Oddly enough, I've obtained a snapshot from the meeting:
How comforting to see Walt Disney's spirit alive and well. That's Bob Iger in the middle.
By the way, I stayed at the Boardwalk hotel at Disneyworld this past year to attend a conference. I found it to be a cheesy, charmless dump, crass in the extreme. My room abutted the elevator shaft and I could hear elevator noise all night long (thoughtfully, the bed had been placed with its headboard up against the elevator shaft wall, though the noise was just as noxious on the other side of the room). My in-room Internet access plug was busted and technical assistance to my room could not fix it, so I had to sit in the lobby and pay for extra wireless access on my laptop to get any work done. There are far better vacation options for families out there, so save yourself some gas money and visit a national or state park closer to home: teach your kids about nature and conservation.
Meanwhile, I expect Disney and ABC will be in our sights for a looooong time.
Update: Roger Ailes had this title in a post before I did, though I had not seen it. Still, I got an email this past week with the line in it, probably in reference to Roger's post. Please go check out what Roger has to say!