Xark!

Ya, you betcha!

So my boss, as part of the Newspaper Next initiative, sends me and P&C colleagues Marsha Guerard and Judy Watts to Minneapolis for a conference.  Marsha is deputy managing editor,  Judy is features editor and I'm the new content development editor. Between the three of us we have, like, a hundred years of experience in all manner of newspaper  roles.  If you respect that sort of thing.  So a  lot of the trip was spent in intense conversation about the future of  the industry, what we can do,  whether we should formulate an escape plan, or how we could, if not change the world, at least change our little corner of it.

But, due to the ... reticent nature of the Minneasotans we came in contact with, we only talked amongst ourselves. (This is why, eventually, conversation turned to The Mall of America and shoes.)

Tennis: Bring the Noise!

Earlier this week, at the Sony Ericsson Open, Serena Williams was bothered by a heckler throughout her match. In addition to some good old-fashioned obnoxious shouts, the person reportedly also shouted out a few racist remarks and was quite rightly ejected from the stadium.

Let’s face it: this guy was a fool. Not only was he fool simply for being racist, but he was also an idiot for thinking that he could yell at a tennis match and go unnoticed. Given that tennis is one of those “Cathedral” religions in which silence is golden, what kind of moron would shout during a match and expect to get away with it?

Like golf and billiards, tennis fans are supposed to sit quietly while the pros concentrate on their moves. Any noise, any muttering, brings a schoolmarmish, “Quiet please” from the judge (this sounds especially bad at Wimbledon when it’s delivered in one of those snooty upper-class accents). Unlike the “non-thinking” sports, like baseball, football, basketball, and hockey—in which players are expected to play despite the noise--tennis players and golfers are evidently performing a skill too sensitive to tolerate noise. 

I want to suggest here that this Cathedral attitude does not serve tennis well, and, as a result, I would like to propose that we welcome tennis, golf and other sports into the arena of fan participation, into an arena in which fans may cheer, boo, heckle and shout throughout the proceedings. What follows—and I do mean this to be taken seriously--are the advantages which would follow my suggestion:

The Onion goes video

Onion News Network Promo

Here's a clip on immigration...

Immigration: The Human Cost

...And here's one on Civil War re-enactors being called up for duty in Iraq...

In The Know: Our Troops In Iraq

Photocopied Nostalgia

Over the last several years, I had been looking for an old friend—Scott Whipple--through occasional Google searches and other internet sleuthing, all to no avail. Whenever I talked to someone with whom I attended undergraduate school at Appalachian State University in the early 80s, I would ask if they knew what had happened to him. Outside of the odd rumor or two, no one seemed to know what had happened to him.

Two weeks ago, I was tipped off that Scott was mentioned in an advertisement for a poster for sale over on eBay (believe me, this wouldn’t be the strangest way that I have found an old friend). When I opened the link I had been provided, I found a poster for sale, with a description provided by an early roommate of Scott’s, describing the circumstances under which the poster had been made. Exchanging information with the seller, I found another dead end when I was told that he, too, hadn’t heard from Scott in over 20 years.

Nonetheless, I was absolutely charmed by what he had for sale: an old mimeographed piece of paper advertising an R.E.M. show at PB Scott’s Music Hall in Blowing Rock, NC back in 1983. It was a show that Scott had sponsored and organized, early in the band’s career (when you could book them for a thousand dollars), and Scott had done it on guts alone, as he didn’t have the money to cover the fee if it had failed.  (Sidebar:  the show was in Blowing Rock rather than Boone, the home of ASU, because Boone was in a dry county).

OK, so I’m looking at the so-called “poster” (pictured above), and I can’t help but smile at a large array of memories , of R.E.M., of who I was at the time. Ultimately, I decided to bid for it, even though it is literally a Xeroxed sheet of typing paper. While my resources are limited, I stupidly didn’t expect it to go for much. Afterall, we are talking about a Xeroxed copy of a copy of a copy. And, as we’re repeatedly told, authenticity is dead. If so, I could make my own poster. Why do I bid? I supposed I did feel that nostalgia was a bit more warranted in my case, as this is a material piece of my own history. I was there, in Boone, when those posters were hung. Like everyone else, I have something of a soft spot for my own mythical past.

While I felt a bit silly bidding what amounts to a full tank of gasoline on a sheet of paper, I was absolutely stunned when the bidding went to almost $250.00.

Battlestar Galactica Season Three wrap-up

Since Daniel asked so nicely, and because Battlestar Galactica conveniently ended its third season this weekend (and won't be airing season four until sometime in 2008!), here's how the universe stands as of the end of season three.  Tremendously huge spoilers follow.

Maybe THAT'S why I like her show

Well, this might explain why I'm strangely drawn to her show whenever I'm surfing past it.

Friday special: Japanese learning English

Ask your doctor about...

Havidol. Say it out loud, then ask your doctor if Havidol is right for you.

Marshall on US attorneys

Joshua Micah Marshall, the guy out ahead of the mainstream media on reporting the US attorneys firing story:

Back up a bit from the sparks flying over executive privilege and congressional testimony and you realize that these are textbook cases of the party in power interfering or obstructing the administration of justice for narrowly partisan purposes. It's a direct attack on the rule of law.

This much is already clear in the record. And we're now having a big public debate about the politics for each side if the president tries to obstruct the investigation and keep the truth from coming out. The contours and scope of executive privilege is one issue, and certainly an important one. But in this case it is being used as no more than a shield to keep the full extent of the president's perversion of the rule of law from becoming known.

It's yet another example of how far this White House has gone in normalizing behavior that we've been raised to associate with third-world countries where democracy has never successfully taken root and the rule of law is unknown. At most points in our history the idea that an Attorney General could stay in office after having overseen such an effort would be unthinkable. The most telling part of this episode is that they're not even really denying the wrongdoing. They're ignoring the point or at least pleading 'no contest' and saying it's okay.

Kassie & the monsters

Sent by Sabine French.