Tag: The Atlantic

Playboy Should Position Itself As The Anti-Axios

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I have spoken at length about this before, but I really enjoy this topic, so I will come at it from a slightly different angle. I have written about how I think a startup blog should try to be the Spy Magazine-like Anti-Axios of our day. A neo-Gawker, if you will.

And, yet, I suspect that due to the changing nature of the broader Internet, that’s just not going to happen. No one with the means, motive and opportunity is going to invest in such an idea simply because Twitter exists and the blog universe has become so large and saturated that it would be difficult for such a person to see any immediate ROI. Or something like that.

So I turn my attention, again, to Playboy.

It just makes too much sense for Playboy to throw everything up in the air and completely switch gears. It makes too much sense for it to hire a bunch of Jezebel writers and turn Playboy.com into the biting political site that we’ve all been looking for. I really enjoy what The Atlantic has been producing and Crooked Media does a good job, but it is, to date, a podcasting company. It just doesn’t seem all that interested in doing what I want.

But Playboy not only has an existing audience, it has a name brand that is already associated with liberal progressive causes. And it’s really, really desperate to be relevant again. Doing as I suggest would do just that. It would really get people buzzing again about the brand and I feel the market would be there, as well.

It’s possible, though, that what I want is not something a legacy brand can provide. It could be that only a startup could do it. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for someone to see what I see. Maybe they never will.

Meh.

The Conundrum Of ‘Preventive War’ & The DPRK

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I’m really digging The Atlantic right now. Their vision is very similar to my vision for a new startup that serve as the “voice” of The Resistance. As I have noted elsewhere, there use of video, in particular, is really cool.
This video by Peter Beinart got me thinking about my own views on a war with the DPRK, or North Korea.

My view is I am against starting a war against the DPRK unless we’re provoke. Or should a war happen because Donald Trump is such a dumb ass the he pokes the North Koreans into a war, then I will have to support the war because I feel the South Koreans have the right to defend themselves.

In other words, I’m against any war as long as it’s simply a scenario, but the moment it’s real, then will have to support it. This, of course, makes the prospect of the Trump Administration wagging the dog a very real possibility.

If an avowed anti-Trump person like me is willing to support something as drastic as a war against North Korea once it starts, then from a strategic standpoint it makes a huge amount of sense for Trump — and “President Bannon” to do just that should the need arise.

It doesn’t take too much thought to imagine a situation, say, late 2018, where the Trump Administration is down for the count and needs a sudden jolt of support. Launching a “preventive war” against the DPRK might do just the trick to save Trump in such a situation.

The reason why such a preventive war would make so much sense from Trump’s strategic view is there is a legitimate reason to want to liberate the people of North Korea. It’s just that even the most cursory attempt at a cost benefit analysis would warn you off. Too many people would die and everyone — other than the people of North Korea — have a vested interest in things staying exactly the way they are.

But if Trump did decide to say “fuck it” and do a preventive war against the DPRK, there would be some pretty spectacular images of people being liberated from concentration camp type conditions. This works on the condition, of course, that the Chinese would allow the Americans to get anywhere near there boarder. That is an issue is very much up to debate at this point.

What happens next is anyone’s guess. It could be that things will continue the way they are, or they could explode into a full scale war. This is pretty much the way they’ve been for about 60 years now, so all we can hope that nothing will happen anytime soon.

The Surprisingly Hot Julia Ioffe Talks Trump As ‘Captain Chaos’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I’m quiet impressed with The Atlantic’s Website, which I think recently got a major revamp. When I was growing up The Atlantic and Harper’s were to magazine that only nerds read because they really didn’t seem to have much point, though I always did like Harper’s Index. That was cool.

Well, things have changed.

Now, The Atlantic is kicking ass and taking names and they’re doing a lot of the things that I think a site that would purport to be the “Voice of the Resistance” would do. Great articles dealing with how to address the rise of Trumplandia and content that would help you make sense of it all. I think either a startup or a retooled Playboy be ideal to do be such a site, but if it turns out to be The Atlantic, that’s great.

I am impressed by The Atlantic’s embrace of video. In the below video the surprisingly hot — and smart — Julia Ioffe talks about Donald Trump as “Captain Chaos” who is giving Russian President Putin exactly what he wanted when he meddled in America’s election in 2016 to begin with: someone who would royally screw up America’s position as the leader of the free world.

The only reason why I even mention Ms. Ioffe’s appearance is I don’t see her on TV that much and her Twitter avi isn’t of her, so each time I do see her actual appearance it takes a moment for me to realize that someone so hot is also really smart and witty, at least on Twitter.