Where C-SPAN is the local TV news
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| The Washington Canard Where C-SPAN is the local TV news |
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Saturday, April 30, 2005
NOW IS THE TIME WHEN WE DO THE LINKING Tonight was the White House correspondents dinner, or "the prom," as the obsessed like to call it. I stayed home from the event and related parties, mostly because I don't own a tuxedo — I mean, one that fits me and is not hanging in a closet on the other side of the country — but also because I already hit one such related event last night. That was a Time dinner at the Metropolitan Club downtown, which featured a "debate" about blogs featuring "the obsessed" herself. I didn't talk to her, although I probably should have. Instead I talked to Jim Kelly, Time's managing editor — the guy who has the final call on each Person of the Year. He was surprisingly well-informed about blogs, and, given the changing media landscape, I suppose he has to be. After that I met up with friends, hit several bars around town and wound up sleeping on a couch in Crackland. Tonight, I'm going to get some work done. But first, there is time to be wasted. Perhaps inspired by Brandon, I figured I'd just share some interesting links:
Thursday, April 28, 2005
SCREECH2 If you didn't know, the Washington Nationals' mascot is a fat baby eagle named "Screech." And of course, when this was first announced, everyone between the ages of eight and eighty had the exact same thought. That includes the folks at the Washington Post, who asked Saved by the Bell's own Dustin Diamond to participate in a washingtonpost.com live chat on the subject earlier this afternoon. (Note: All spelling is as it originally appears. I don't have all day.) One would imagine it was a bit unusual for him to answer a few questions about this mascot: washingtonpost.com: Dustin, Thank you for joining us today. What's in a name? Based on your experience playing the character "Screech" on "Saved by the Bell," what might lie in store for the Washington Nationals' recently unveiled mascot -- having been named "Screech"?But other questions, one assumes, he's quite adept at answering. Queries such as: Atlanta, Ga.: Screech! Have you seen Slater recently? What about Mr Belding? Have you thought about a prime time Saved By the Bell reunion where everyone returns to save the school from some lame, easily solved teen problem?And: New York, NY: Dustin, Would you be jealous if you found out Screech (not you) was dating Lark Vorhees?And: Los Angeles, Calif.: Hey buddy. This is Mark Paul Gosselar. Don't be fooled by my seeming inability to spell my own name. Is there anything you always wanted to tell me but never had the chance? This would be a great format for it.To which Screech ... er, Diamond has apparently settled on a pat response: Dustin Diamond: no way broAlthough sometimes he snaps and takes it out on his fellow castmates: Bethesda, MD: Screech, I have always been a huge fan, in fact you were the only reason I used to watch saved by the bell. I was excited to hear our new mascot was Screech, how do you feel about it? Do you miss hanging out with A.C. Slater and the gang?You can see why. On more than one occasion he was moved to insist: 99% of what you see on the internet is false or exagerated. P.S. Mike D from the beasty boys is NOT my brother.And: Neil is NOT my dad. There may be some relation there but I've never looked it up or met Neil.More good questions: Olney, Maryland: If Screech were a tree, what kind of a tree would he be?FLOG™ — is that you? And the question I would have liked to ask: DC: Was anyone ever actually saved by the bell?Hope you enjoyed that whirlwind version of the chat. If that seemed long ... maybe you'd prefer to spend fifteen minutes sifting through this yourself. In closing, I hope the Nats do follow through with one chatter's suggestion for what to name the field at RFK: Dustin Diamond. Sunday, April 24, 2005
DOWN AND OUT IN SOCO For a few days now I've meant to follow up on a post from this past week, whence I conceded my failure to share lurid stories from my neighborhood in northwest DC. Well, I think I can make up for it. This neighborhood isn't quite as sketchy as the one surrounding Frank's Brookland/CUA Metro stop, but only a few years ago it certainly was. It still is "sketchy," on occasion.  Southern Columbia Heights is a neighborhood-in-transition, which is sort of a P.C. way of saying it's being "gentrified." This is a mixed neighborhood — mixed racially, economically, architecturally, even elevationally. The hill below my apartment is the steepest climb in the city from here all the way south to the Anacostia waterfront, where the Nationals' ballpark will eventually be built. The identity of my immediate surrounding area is somewhat unclear: I'm too far west to be part of the Howard University neighborhood. I'm too far east to be part of Meridian Hill. I'm one block north of Florida Ave., the official limit of U Street, and I'm just south of the area typically referred to as Columbia Heights. So where the hell do I live? This area might well be Cardozo. The high school across from me is indeed named that. The nearest Metro stop is U Street/African American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo (try saying that five times fast). But I've never seen or read or heard that word applied to the neighborhood as a whole — or anything else around here, now that I think about it. What "Cardozo" refers to — a cursory Google search is of no help — I haven't the slightest clue. This confusion persisted until a month or so ago, when my neighbor and fellow DCist Scott Reitz suggested to me a name he'd seen on a community organization flyer: SoCo. SoCo. Get it? Like SoHo. Like the drink. Like Southern Columbia Heights. (Wouldn't that make it SoCoHe? —Ed. That sounds horrible.) The only problem is that it doesn't seem to be in wide use; according to Google, about the only people who seem to use it live in ... SoCo. So, let's leave this aside. Perhaps I should actually get around to following up on that post. Ahem. It's not so bad where I live, but it does get interesting from time to time. For example, here's the crack house on the diagonal opposite corner of my block:  Pretty cool, huh? Even better, that mostly-obscured large brown building visible at the end of the street is Cardozo H.S., aka Mercury Central. And only a half-block up the other direction, you've got million-dollar homes with gated driveways and multiple rooftop decks. Take this one, for instance:  And you can't quite see the corner there, but I'll show you what's there, or was, as of a few weeks ago:  Curious to know what happened? Here's the Post's lead on what happened: A 9-year-old boy was shot in the face and critically wounded last night as he played with other children on a sidewalk outside an apartment building in Northwest Washington, D.C. police said.Do you still have an appetite for interesting stories from around the neighborhood? (FYI, this was two blocks up from me, visible from the front door of my apartment building.) Speaking of kids, there do seem to be a number of schools around here, including one that seems to have a dumpster on the roof:  Not a few churches, too:  To further prove my mixed-neighborhood argument, how about this:  What do we have here? It appears that the owners/renters of the red unit own a Jaguar. Pretty nice. And yet it also appears that they are using two-by-fours to prop up the roof on their front porch. You can't tell from here, but across the street is a day-glo orange townhouse with white trim. And just a few blocks away, in the neighborhood behind Howard University, is a depressing reminder of nature's indifference to human life. Next to it, we have a huge man-made lake:  The reservoir. The McMillan Reservoir, to be accurate. One of these days, I swear I'm gonna swim out to that island. Hop the barbed wire fence and just swim. Not sure if I can bring the digi out there, but you'll know if I do. I'm serious. Friday, April 22, 2005
SPORTS! SPORTS! SPORTS! Yes, the Canard has been slow the past couple of days, but that's because I've been busy elsewhere. For instance, I finally saw my first Nats game at RFK yesterday. I did a too-brief write-up for DCist about it today. Meanwhile, I also spent the past week trying to set up an interview with Derek Anderson -- the departing Oregon State quarterback, not the likely-departing Blazer 2-guard -- for Oregon Sports Fan. Enjoy. I'll be back with another photo-essay later this weekend. Tuesday, April 19, 2005
MING MING, THE SUN GOD Hat tip to OSF columnist Alex Tam, who earlier today alerted me to the existence of Sun Ming Ming, who looks very likely to be the tallest NBA player ever. Check out these photos:   His agent tells the Greensboro News & Record, whence these photos were lifted: "More than anything I saw his size." You don't say. At 21 years of age, the man is nearly 7'9" and 350 pounds — hefty, but still nowhere near Shaquille O'Neal's heaviest playing bloat, I mean, weight. And he's got eight inches on Shaq. The News & Record insinuates that he can shoot, but by not clearly stating he can shoot, as sportswriters did before anyone in the West had seen Yao Ming (shorter than Sun by just 3¾ inches) play, I'm going to doubt his fundamentals until I know otherwise. Yet Sun's weaknesses are described as poor flexibility (I'm shocked) and a lack of weight training, both of which should be largely correctable. If Manute Bol and Gheorghe Muresan (two previous holders of the tallest NBA player record) made it to the big show for awhile, Sun Ming Ming has it made. And even if he doesn't have the skills to become another Shaq or Yao, I'll bet we start seeing him in credit card commercials (or maybe Billy Crystal movies) no later than November 2006. P.S. — Speaking of former Bullet/Wizard Muresan, my local paper reported today that he still shows up in luxury boxes at the Phone Booth as a "suite ambassador" (at least now that his once-hapless team is going to the playoffs). CROOKLAND For those of you on the West Coast who have been thus far disappointed by my lack of interesting reports on the crime in my neighborhood, I have some good news: my drinking buddy and sparring partner Frank's neighborhood is a like brick-and-mortar "eBay of crack; a place where the frugal crackhead goes to hock DVD's and, if he's lucky, gets a crackerjack deal on a vial." Click on the link above and he'll tell you all about it. P.S. — The above title was supposed to be a Spike Lee-esque twist on the name of Frank's neighborhood, Brookland, but maybe "Crackland" would have been better. Oh well. Sometimes there's no way to pull off an effective play on words unless everyone already knows what you're getting at. WE HAVE A POPE! Don't quote me on that: "We Have A Pope!" is what Fox News plastered on the bottom of the screen (media types call it a "chyron") for the first half-hour after the bells finally rang. It's the kind of enthusiasm you usually only hear from expectant fathers: "It's a boy!" Of course, all the news cablers have kept their cameras fixed on the Vatican 'round-the-clock since the papal conclave began early Monday morning EDT, and the broadcast nets have broken in every time the smoke of frankly indeterminate color poured out of the chapel's chimney.  But not those anti-Papists at C-SPAN — all morning they devoted their so-called "coverage" to the "Future of the U.S. Space Program."UPDATE — We have a Joseph Ratzinger! That is to say, we have a Benedict XVI! I'd sure think the folks over at the Ratzinger Fan Club have got to be pretty stoked right now ... except that their site has crashed under the traffic of billions of online Ratzinger-curious Catholics and papal gawkers (like me) trying to get onto the site right now. Billions of people will do that. I should add: When the announcement was read, Fox started running "Habemus Papam!" on the chyron, as if we're supposed to know that means "We Have A Pope!" or something. And I don't know that much about this new Pope, but I like him already. After all, his name is (or was) Joseph Ratzinger. Monday, April 18, 2005
ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHERS What else is there to say besides, wow:  Well, we should say: Enjoy it while it lasts. (Image via DCist). Saturday, April 16, 2005
DUPONT ALL OVER AGAIN Last weekend, via photos and snark, I documented a gathering of swingers (not the wife-swapping kind) in Dupont Circle; later, a helpful visitor informed me that I'd stumbled across the annual Lindy Exchange. Moments before stumbling across these 21st-century swing kids, I snapped a series of photos to assemble as a panorama. Unlike my previous panoramic effort, this time I went a full 360° — anchored at both ends by a somewhat-blurry guy sleeping in the sun (I wish I hadn't racheted the quality down so far, but I'm not doing it again). Click on the smaller picture to see the much (much) larger version on the other side:  Thursday, April 14, 2005
THE BEUTLER FILES What's this? Another blogger in Washington, DC with the last name of Beutler? I think I'm going to have to sit down for a moment. This "Brian Beutler" fellow appears to have recently graduated from a West Coast college and relocated to the District. According to some, but primarily himself, he is "up and coming." Indeed, he is apparently an intern of some sort at the Washington Monthly; not a bad magazine to get mixed up with, actually. Late last month he shared with the world his thoughts on going through his first production. The experience made him a wiser man: Last, and crassest of all, I learned that there are at least of handful of journalists out there who get published in respectable magazines with what seems like either less ability or less dedication than I possess.Well, that much is obvious. The surname is a dead giveaway. Reading some double-bogey submissions (and I won't ever let you know which they were) evoked in me a streak of schadenfreude, but it also sharpened my focus.Schadenfreude? To quote a fictional swashbuckling Spaniard, I don't think that word means what you think it means. Anyway — and of course this is just a long way around getting to the point — he's almost assuredly referring to this article. Speaking of which, you can catch the non-Brian Beutler on NPR's "Wait Wait — Don't Tell Me" until the coming episode is posted on Saturday. P.S. — What about the Nats first home game, isn't that tonight? Oh, sure. It's on right now. That other Beutler has it covered over here. DON'T CALL IT PLAGIARISM But it's uncomfortably close. Here's the opening sentence of Pitchfork's review of the new Fischerspooner album, April 8: Why exactly was I supposed to hate Fischerspooner again?And here's the first sentence of the Washington Post's review of same, April 13: The first problem with hating Fischerspooner is that it's hard to know where to start.The overall tone of the reviews are similar, and come to the same essential conclusion: it's an improvement on their first album, though Pitchfork notes that they still haven't topped "Emerge." You make the call! Monday, April 11, 2005
DEATH AND TAXES Boy, have I got some amazing video for you — Watch this. Crazy, huh? Do you know what that is? Watch it again. Try pausing it. That's no MRI, and no computer simulation, either. That's the real thing. Best of all, your tax dollars paid for it! Speaking of taxes, is it really possible that I owe $1,747 to the District of Columbia — after they've already withheld several thousand dollars from my paycheck? If so, this blog may go on hiatus once they throw me in jail — because I can assure you, I don't have any sum near that just sitting around, waiting to prop up the worst schools in the country. Then again, I could always start a prison blog. UPDATE, THURSDAY — Well! Amn't I glad I went to H&R Block. They took a bigger cut than I'd have preferred to surrender, but I am getting at least three figures from the feds, the District and Virginia. But next year I'm using Turbo Tax. Sunday, April 10, 2005
DUPONT DANCE PARTY! So there I am, walking through Dupont Circle around 4:30 Saturday afternoon, just minding my own business...  It's the first warm and sunny weekend in months. With all these people just hanging out in a public park, I might think this was New York City — except for the fact that I was obviously in Dupont Circle and not, say, Union Square.  But wait a minute. Something's amiss here. Not enough lackadasicality. Too much revelry. Why, it's...  It's a dance party! I know what you're thinking: "Come on and dance guys grab a girl don't wait make the twirl / It's your world and I'm just a squirrel / Trying to get a nut to move your butt / To the dance floor / So you what's up hands in the air / Come on say yeah / Everybody over here / Everybody over there / The crowd is live enough as I pursue this groove..."  Whoooooo! Except this is a swing dance party. For reals.  A swing dance party led not by a big band, but by a Dell Inspiron (look closely).  We work hard, we play hard.  Of course, no dance would be complete without its wallflowers.  Dedicated to the Saturday, April 09, 2005
FALLING-STATUE DAY  Two years ago today, down came the statue of Saddam Hussein in what is or was known then as Fardus/Firdus Square. I don't think we, or even they, would know how far along they would be by now in creating a real representative democracy. There are other times to haggle over where and when U.S. intelligence went wrong before the invasion. Right now, it's worth recognizing and respecting (and for us war supporters, cautious reveling in) their strides toward democracy and freedom in a country once regarded as the worst of modern despotism. May other "Axis of Evil" countries follow. But what can I say better than a Canard correspondent, Haider Ajina, an Iraqi-American with family back in Iraq, who forwards this picture and his captioning:  The sign in this picture says "The mass graves are proof enough to find Saddam guilty and hanging him" Vengeance is on their minds, and understandably so. But equally on the agenda is building their new country. I have to feel satisfied — in spite of the losses sustained by the U.S., our allies and Iraqis — in being one of those supporting Iraq's progress toward a free country. Even if you weren't sure of it two years ago, I think you'd have to give it up for the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites of Iraq — their best days are ahead of them. P.S. — Looks like Power Line, which also gets Ajina's dispatches, has posted the same message and a bit more commentary. Worth a look. Friday, April 08, 2005
CUBA CONFIDENTIAL U.N. Ambassador-designate John Bolton is shaping up as President Bush's most controversial nominee since perhaps John Ashcroft, and Democrats are raising new questions (any questions they can think of) about him. Meanwhile, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is likely to wrap up his Valerie Plame investigation soon. What do the two have to do with each other? Nothing! Unless... Here's today's Miami Herald:
UPDATE — In this post I asserted that the Miami Herald and USA Today were confused over whether they could print the name of CIA analyst Christian Westermann. As my erstwhile colleague Eric Pfeiffer reported last week, there was some confusion about whether the name of analyst Fulton Armstrong could be released (it could and was). It's unclear to whom the Herald was referring, but I concede it's possible that Fulton was analyst they meant. Wednesday, April 06, 2005
NATS WIN! Yeah, that's all. Nats win! Nats win! It would've been cool if they'd won their first game, but let's be grateful: That they won their second (against a marginally better team, and by the same margin) is a not-too-shabby start. And if you were like me, wondering just where the hell BallWonk went to, well, it turns out he had the kind of reason that trumps any consideration of baseball or blogs. Long live DadWonk. It's a beautiful post. You don't often see many like it. P.S. Though if you want to read a very strange and affecting post, read this, and don't leave before you read his mother's comments. DRUDGE RETREAD Today witnesses the launch of blog tycoon Nick Denton's Drudge Report-wannabe, Sploid, which sounds a bit like a combination of the words "explode" and "tabloid." It certainly strikes one as Murdoch-inspired. And with an ex-Gawker editor and sometime blogger/would-be newspaperman Ken Layne at the helm, he's got talent. But at first blush, I don't think it poses any danger to Matt Drudge's decade-old web venture. It's not that it lacks for attention-grabbing headlines: "CONGRESS PORKERS WASTE $27.3 BILLION" and "ISLAMIC TERROR GOON SET FREE BY TERROR COURT!" are nothing if not punchy.  Denton also calls the politics of his site "anarcho-capitalist," which is intriguing, though I don't think he really means that. Even Ayn "Karl Marx of the Right" Rand wasn't that far out there. Denton tells the media-obsessed New York Observer: "Unfortunately, a liberal tabloid is a contradiction in terms. I don’t think it’s workable." Interesting, particularly because the article also profiles socialite/activist Arianna Huffington's forthcoming "Huffington Report" (which, with contributors including Warren Beatty and Gwyneth Paltrow, sounds just execrable). The other problem is Sploid's layout: it's organized in a single-column blog format, which is generally a good idea, but the headlines are too compressed, with too many Gawkeresque ads between them, plus too-big fonts and — here's the key — not enough white space. None, actually. It's too busy. Drudge's single-banner top and tri-column main section gives the eye time to wander and places to rest, with enough space between the text and pictures so as not to be overly distracting. To Denton's credit, he freely admits to the Observer that he won't catch Drudge anytime soon. But Denton has the money to be cavalier: "Drudge is very good. It will probably take us 10 years to catch up with his level of traffic." Meanwhile, Drudge has the popularity (9.5 million visits in the past 24 hours, 3.4 billion in the past 365 days) to be snide: "I don’t think that need is there. I think I fill that need." On the other hand, any causal observer of the Drudge Report has surely noticed it's fallen off a bit. Drudge's last big scoop was the Kerry intern rumor about a year back, and that quickly proved false. He doesn't usually update until mid-morning EST on weekdays (living in Miami instead of LA these days, he could) and he takes most weekends off. He was hours and hours late to reporting Terri Schiavo's predictable death on a weekday morning, and hours late to post Pope John Paul II's equally-expected passing. Not to mention, Huffington just hired away Drudge's longtime friend and site collaborator Andrew Breitbart (ouch). And yet, by all accounts Drudge's news judgment still drives water cooler conversation inside the Beltway and without. I don't read Drudge nearly the way I used to, but then I haven't heard anything on this week's Billboard Hot 100 either. Saturday, April 02, 2005
SO LONG, YOUR POPEFULNESS Pope John Paul II has left the building. Flags outside federal buildings around the country will fly at half-mast until (I think) the funeral next week. I'm not sure what I have to add to any of this. I'm not a Catholic, though a number of my co-workers are, so Friday afternoon was pretty dramatic — especially when Fox News and then CNN started reporting that he'd died. MSNBC alone chose not to run with it. But then, nobody watches MSNBC. And did you notice that Drudge was late updating with the news? When Terri Schiavo passed away a few days earlier, it took him at least two hours to update, and his headline was the decidedly un-artful I don't have much to say about the Pope (and not much I care to get into about Schiavo) but I did wonder how popular are suffixed variations on the word "pope." The oracle Google reveals all:
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