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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Monday, June 26, 2006
OLIVIER, BRANDO, KEIKO If you can look at this IMDb entry without doubling over in laughter, well, then you have more self-control than I:  And if you're wondering about the first Keiko, in 1962 she played "3rd Dancing Girl" in something called "Confessions of an Opium Eater," aka "Evils of Chinatown," aka "Souls for Sale," and was never heard from again. Saturday, June 24, 2006
FINDING MY SOULMATE I haven't really been part of the political blogosphere for about three months now, and I won't properly rejoin their ranks for a couple weeks or so (if that isn't a hint, then nothing is), but I'm glad the fine people at MyDD still remember me. For example:  Emphasis his, but who cares about that — hot damn, I'm just two degrees of mental separation from Sen. Clinton? I'm flattered, all right. But it turns out I am not two degrees separated. He continues: This is a flawed way of thinking. It is based on the assumption that the people who donate to, volunteer for, and create buzz on behalf of Democratic candidates / progressive causes will give a fixed amount of resources no matter what those candidates do and how those causes are run. That simply isn't not true, and even though many people like William Buetler and Hillary Clinton talk as though it is true, they know it is not true.Whooo! Take that — one degree! And I'm not even counting my old friend and former co-worker who went to write speeches for her. Me and Hillary? We're likethis. However, as I said the last time, I'm fine with all of this just as long as you spell my name right. Alas, Chris is just 1 for 2 here. But then again, it's not that Chris doesn't know any better, it's just that he's the arguably the typo king of the left-wing blogosphere. (I'm also rather amused — or should I be worried? — that Bowers thinks he can read my mind.) I've had my run-ins with the netroots before, and chances are I will have others. Despite the allegations of rampant craziness at dKos, I must say, for the most part they are rational and sincere people, albeit people with whom I disagree on most public policy issues. Some of them, though, are real assholes. And on that note, I've got to say... I'm really enjoying this. Note — If you haven't been here for a few days — and really, who in their right mind has been? — scroll down for the 10 reasons (give or take) why I'm glad the Miami Heat won the NBA Finals. Update — Maybe Bowers can't spell, but I can't count. Degree numbers have been adjusted. Monday, June 19, 2006
CUBAN MISSIVE CRISIS Boy, Deadspin called this one right. Here's Mavs owner Mark Cuban on what it was like in the locker room after last night's (this morning's, if you want to get technical) playoff loss to the Miami Heat: (Warning: Contains "language." Also, "language usage errors.") Last night in the locker room after we lost in overtime to the heat. I was asked by reporters to answer some questions. I told them i would if they asked good questions and didnt ask the same cliche’d questions they had asked after other games. It was interesting how quiet everyone got.Sounds like it was the Mavs' worst loss ever. P.S. — In tangentially related news, I had the day off today — pictures may be along later — and after getting my passport arranged (I'll be in "Old Europe" for a week next month) I realized that I should have gotten rid of my worn-out sneakers when the soles started wearing away ... months ago. Fate smiled upon me, and on the next block I went into a shoe store and picked up a pair of Shaquille O'Neal-branded high tops. Yes, I've forgiven Shaq for beating my Portland Trail Blazers in the 1999 Western Conference Finals, and for any other crushing blows that I've made a point of forgetting. I hate Kobe now — who knew then that Shaq would prove to be actually a pretty good guy, and Kobe would turn out to be actually pretty much not? And while I can live with either Miami or Dallas winning the series, it's easier to root for an underdog team of all-stars (some of them even likable!) than Dirk & The Nobodies. But that isn't all there is to say about these shoes. For instance: They cost $32. And I found them at Payless Shoe Source. But that's not my problem — Shaq, don't call your agent. Fire him. P.P.S. — And on behalf of a local sports franchise, take that, Yankees. And that. (Ryan Zimmerman, he's like our Dwayne Wade!) Best weekend the Nats have had — ever. P.P.P.S. — And on behalf of a player from back home, will Kellen Clemens succeed where Joey Harrington, A.J. Feeley, Akili Smith, Tony Graziani, and so many others have not-quite-succeeded before? SI's Peter King all but promises it: I think one of the interesting stories in training camp come August will be out of Jets practices, because QB Kellen Clemens, the team's second-round pick, appeared to be the most impressive quarterback at last weekend's minicamp. I can't wait to see what first-year coach Eric Mangini does if Clemens is clearly better than Patrick Ramsey and Chad Pennington by Week 3 of the preseason.As a Redskins fan, I can say with some certainty that he will at least be clearly better than Patrick Ramsey. P.P.P.P.S. — Just because I'm a friend of P, here's one more sports-related link: an oldie but a goodie from The Onion. Update Way Too Late To Be Even Remotely Relevant — Way to go, Miami Heat. The Mavs were favored from the beginning, but in game 6 you went and broke with the prevailing trend of just winning only your home games. In retrospect, I find it easier to explain why I rooted for the Heat over the Mavs, despite my West coast beginnings and my respect for both teams:
Sunday, June 18, 2006
I SAW THE SIGN And lo, the poorly-reviewed horror remake1 starring Julia Stiles and Liev Schreiber2 that opened on 6/6/06 has, improbably, been visited again by the mark of the Beast:  (Pedantic note: See bottom right-hand corner of above image.) The question is, did the studio manipulate the box office numbers to achieve this result? It's certainly possible. Early returns are always the studio's own estimates, and it's commonly assumed that these numbers are fiddled with. But this usually happens when two studios are opening pictures on the same Friday, and allegedly round the numbers up to capture the top spot, (even if the revised estimates (actual ticket sales, which take longer to count) are lower3). Fox surely knew "The Omen" would fall hard after a surprisingly strong initial frame4, even without any other horror pictures opening (though "Nacho Libre" appeals to the same demographic). But they surely didn't know how hard it would fall. If it was off 68% from last week, why not fib and report earnings that produce a demonic % Change statistic? But who knows how much they might have rounded ticket sales up5 or even perhaps down. The movie supposedly made $5.35 million this weekend, but what if it actually made $5.5? In that case, would it actually be to their benefit to underestimate their box office take? You bet. It got me to write this blog post. (Hat tip to eagle-eyed Box Office Mojo reader EDP, the first to see the sign. No word on whether it opened up his eyes.) _____ 1Apparently not "based on a true story," as "The Amityville Horror" is "based on a true story." 2At least one of whom should certainly know better, but never really has. 3That weekend's over, and another one is always coming up. 4Yes, I speak Variety. 5And who cares how far off they are? We've already established that no one pays attention to last week's numbers. In the very outside chance someone did notice a large discrepancy, this would be one of those "any publicity is good publicity" situations. Saturday, June 17, 2006
IN THE COMPANY OF BLOGGERS Conservative bloggers scored their biggest takedown in helping him tarnish his twighlight years at CBS. But in the New York Times, Jacques Steinberg reports that Dan Rather's surrender to the blogosphere may become total: Mr. Rather also said that in April, in anticipation of what seemed to be his imminent departure from CBS, he had formed a company — he named it News and Guts, in a nod to what he considers the pillars of his professional life — through which he plans to create several other journalism ventures, including, perhaps, a blog. (Though he has not yet settled on a title, he says he has ruled out one: "I'd Rather Say This.")Whether he writes it, or opens comments, or if this happens at all, remains to be seen. And he'd be in good company — the victim of the liberal blogosphere's biggest takedown has been blogging constantly since the first few months after his exposure. Can a Trent Lott blog be far behind? P.S. — On a related note, Brian Stelter floats a juicy email from an apparent industry insider suggesting Rather's other business opportunity, a program on Mark Cuban's little-seen HDNet, might be a huge mistake. If true, it would be in good company — Cuban's other main property is in crisis-control mode right now, too. Update — My former colleague Danny Glover had pretty much the same reaction ... and goes further: "Now if Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., would give blogging some thought, that would be real progress. If you're reading, senator, consider this an invitation to start your blogging journey with a guest entry at Beltway Blogroll." Thursday, June 15, 2006
MAP QUEST Many thanks to Brandon at the Portland-centric Welcome to Blog for the help in explaining what's going on here:  Thanks also to David Schargel for knowing the answer. ALL THUMBS We've needed some good news from Iraq for a long time, and it sounds like killing Zarqawi was more than just a single victory: Information recovered from that safe house has led to hundreds more raids and dozens more dead Qaedists. They aren't the only terrorists in Iraq, of course, but they probably are the most intractable. On a tangent, read this and see if you wonder the same thing as I did: Iraq's national security adviser [Mouwafak al-Rubaie] said Thursday a "huge treasure" of documents and computer records was seized after the raid on terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's hideout, giving the Iraqi government the upper hand in its fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. ...So, my question is: What's Arabic for "thumb drive"? P.S. — I have but one complaint about how Zarqawi met his end: That I didn't put him on my death pool list this year. I had him last year, but for some idiot reason didn't include him this time around. Another question, then: Does this mean I don't support the troops? Delayed Update &mdash The Canard gets results! I knew my go-to guy on all things Arabic language, the man with two first names, would come through. Or close enough. A friend of his thinks either al-Rubaie would have simply said "thumb drive," but he might also have said "cart zakaera," the equivalent of "memory card." Monday, June 12, 2006
APOLOGY1 FOR WASHINGTON SPORTS FANS In the June issue of the Washington Monthly editor Amy Sullivan2 assails the "tepid" sports "fandom of Washingtonians." Sullivan is one of the smartest writers at the Monthly; her treatment of religion and politics is much more compelling than that of most liberal pundits. But I simply cannot abide her mistreatment of her fellow Washington-area sports fans. If she makes some good points (and some obvious ones) about the District sports culture, she also focuses on the exception to the complete exclusion of the small pool of other important considerations (i.e. every single area team save one).  So here she is, lambasting us for ignoring the now-undeniably-good Washington Wizards:If you walked around downtown Washington this spring, you'd have found virtually no sign that the Wizards were in the playoffs -- no Wizards pennants in store windows, no overheard conversations in coffee shops about last night's winning three-pointer. When I talked to friends—most of them, like me, transplants from other cities—about the Wizards, the typical reaction was "Oh yeah, they're in the playoffs, aren't they?" They, not we.It's certainly true that the transient nature of Washingtonians means that the local franchises have to compete for the hearts of local sports fans. I presume that most sports fans from elsewhere in the country have designated bars to watch their favorite teams on satellite. I myself remain a committed fan of teams from back home, notably the Oregon Ducks football squad, whose satellite and broadcast games I attend with religious zeal3. And I remain a steadfast fan of the Portland Trail Blazers — even though their last couple years have been defined by almost anything but winning. That's true fandom.  But that's beside the point. Here's the problem. Her article makes no mention of the Washington Nationals. Apart from a passing reference to the Nixon era, she doesn't talk at all about the Washington Redskins — only the most profitable NFL franchise currently and in history.Amy, come on! This simply isn't fair. To wit: Let's get the weakest comparisons out of the way first — I'm not much of a metric football fan personally, but DC United is something like the Lakers and the Yankees rolled into one, if you follow MLS, and Amy, at least a few of your peers do. There's also the Capitals. I don't know how popular they are, as I follow hockey perhaps even less than I follow soccer, but I do know you don't want to be caught changing trains at Metro Center after a Caps game. More to the point: The brand-new Nationals are averaging 32,000 attendees per game. This is 2,300 more people per game than what the storied, Sosa-ed Orioles bring in per game. And if you read Gabe Rivera's Baseball Bug, you can't help but notice the Nationals are among the most-blogged teams in MLB — this was true even when they were creating a great sucking sound earlier this season. Moreover, I think Ms. Sullivan has been walking around town with her eyes shut, because you can't walk half a block without seeing someone wearing a cursive-W Nationals hat. And most Washingtonians hate the guy most synonymous with the letter "W"!  I don't even know where to begin with the Washington Redskins. It's one of the most successful franchises in all of professional sports, with memorable Super Bowl wins and annual revenues second only to the New York Yankees, but still larger than the GDP of some Middle Eastern countries. At 91,000 seats, it's the biggest stadium in the NFL (probably in all of professional sports), and tickets are prized mightily. The return of legendary coach Joe Gibbs (returning from NASCAR, another "sport" I suppose Washingtonians could be accused of not caring about) was big, big, big news in January 2004, and is all the more compelling as Gibbs just might be bringing a Super Bowl contending team to the field this fall (knock on wood). The team's subsequent return to respectability hasn't exactly gone unnoticed in the local and national media. I could probably root for the also-pretty-good Seahawks, as do most of my fellow Portland natives, but I for one have cast my NFL lot with the Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons (aka "the team from Washington," as my hometown paper insists on calling them).Her failure to consider the Redskins' ubiquity and the Nationals' instant popularity renders her article nothing less than a smear on all Washington-area sports fans. And I tend to abhor the decrying of any one critical opinion piece as a "smear." But this qualifies. So what about the Wizards? I dunno. She's got a point there. Led by coach Eddie Jordan and point guard Gilbert Arenas, they're legitimate playoff contenders (if not quite title contenders). But her argument is overall so wrongheaded that this interesting question is almost entirely obscured. In my case, I would be more than willing to make the Wizards my second-favorite team after the Blazers... as soon as they change their name back to the Bullets. Sometime Later Update — My former DCist colleague The DCeiver hits hard, and fair: "[T]he basic problem with Sullivan's premise" is that she "doesn't know any actual Washingtonians." _____ 1In the formal justification or defense sense of the word. 2Full disclosure — Sullivan sought me out to write about Sonny Bono Memorial Park last year, and in the end pretty much re-wrote what I turned in. But she also made it much better in the process. 3 Not that I don't skip church on some Sundays (and the other eight months of the year). WHY ON EARTH AM I EVEN WRITING ABOUT ANN COULTER IN THE FIRST PLACE  Howard Kurtz covers [instert clever-ish compound adjective here] Ann Coulter's much remarked about recent remarks about the semi-famous New Jersey-based women known as the "9/11 widows," "terror widows," and sometimes the "Jersey girls." The New York Times' David Carr issued a harsher take on Coulter this weekend — with the above graphic representation of her career — and the subject is certainly tearing up the Internets today. Now, I've tuned out Ann Coulter ever since about "invade their countries," etc., so I didn't really look and see what she actually said until just today. So, how bad was it? Methinks: These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation, and acted as if the terrorist attack only happened to them.Hmm, I guess I can see that. These broads are millionaires lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities.Huh? And I don't think she has citations for "reveling." I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much.I really can't recall ever seeing Kristin Breitweiser in a good mood. And by the way, how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies?Um, do you know that they were? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy.Okay, I thought that was funny. But overall, Ann Coulter is just doing Ted Rall's grotesque shtick about five years late. Saturday, June 10, 2006
THE GATE CRASHERS  If you follow the political blogosphere, then you're probably aware of Yearly Kos, this weekend's first-ever conference for members of the Daily Kos community, a far-flung faction of fighting folks, united for the purpose of "crashing the gates" of the Beltway political establishment. Given the rising prominence of political bloggers, particularly left-wing bloggers, it's no surprise that more than a few Democratic presidential hopefuls and a sizable contingent of DC's political reporters made the trek to Las Vegas as welll.I'd wager the whole event has already been hyped beyond its actual importance, but then again, this is what political reporters do best. Most of the change bloggers can bring to politics has already been realized (short of electoral success, although this point is hotly debated), and so I expect plenty of silly things to be written about the event, or I expect that they're already written and still awaiting editorial feedback. But it's fun to see the attending media trip over regular-old attribution-agreement errors that long predated the advent of the blogosphere. And by "the attending media," I mean New York Times whipping boy Adam Nagourney, who probably gets it from both sides more than almost anyone else. To set this up, we'll start with a long-ish excerpt of the report from NR's Byron York on Thursday, from the site of a workshop, the "Center for American Progress Pundit Project Training": [W]ould-be mini-pundits weren’t the only ones who showed up at 8:00 A.M. in a nondescript conference room down several winding halls from the Riviera’s casinos. Reporters showed up, too, drawn not only by all the hype surrounding YearlyKos but because the pundit session seemed sexier than the other fare available—panels like “CivicSpace Website Building Workshop” and “Progressive Majority Workshop: Recruiting Progressive Candidates.” So the Center for American Progress trainers and their student pundits found themselves under the gaze of Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Ana Marie Cox of Time, Matt Labash of The Weekly Standard, and others.York doesn't mention whether Nagourney was in attendance, which makes it harder to draw conclusions about the segment of his report I'm going to quote next. Dowd's presence doesn't necessarily mean he wasn't there, as the political desk of course operates independently of the editorial columnists, but it's also possible MoDo shared a bit of reporting with her colleague. So here's the relevant excerpt of Nagourney's report, from today's edition: Jennifer Palmieri, a deputy White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton, held a "pundit project training," where she told bloggers how to present themselves in television interviews — what to wear, how to sit and what to say.No names? It's possible that MoDo passed along the fact of Palmieri's involvement with this session without noting the injunction against using participants' names. It's possible he was in attendance at the actual event, and didn't abide by the same agreement. It's possible he wasn't there, MoDo told him the whole story, and he ignored it. It's also possible York overstated the agreement. Now, it's also possible that Palmieri's name was simply on the daily schedule, Nagourney did not attend, and simply noted the fact without realizing an agreement had been made (it's worth considering the fact that he didn't write any more about this workshop). As I expect this would be the case, what a ridiculous request on the part of CAP's workshop organizers. Requests for the anonymity of sources are always sort of a ruse to keep the outsiders (i.e. readers) out of the loop, but this one is especially dumb. If Nagourney hadn't blurted it out in today's New York Times, any one of the thousands of bloggers there could have (and may have) written about it themselves. I could probably fire off a few e-mails and find out who the other person was, but I'm guessing it's someone listed on this page with the word "communications" in their title. But the parallel with Nagourney's former colleague Judith Miller — whose protection of sources culminated in last summer's best water cooler speculation — is one that, in other circumstances, Maureen Dowd wouldn't be able to resist. P.S. — If you didn't already click on Nagourney's hyperlinked name above, "Adam Nagourney" has already written about the convo. Don't forget to stick around for the comments. P.P.S. — In the interests of self-aggrandizement, I would like to point out that I was the only member of the national media to attend and report on the first-ever conference for members of the Atrios/Eschaton community (the second-largest left-wing political blog) last September. Thursday, June 01, 2006
THE SOUNDTRACK AND THE FURY I subscribe to (but only lurk in) the wallace-l list, the listserv (remember those?) devoted to David Foster Wallace, where many an interesting debate about literary fiction is always five or ten minutes away from breaking into a flurry of e-mails likely to wreak havoc on my productivity. One from earlier this week included some discussion of William Faulkner, and reading these e-mails in my Gmail account as I do, of course I get those keyword-relevant text ads along the right hand side. I rarely notice them. This time I'm glad I did. Herewith, maybe the best (i.e. most hilarious) such text ad I've seen in the few short years of Google Adsense's existence:  What the hell, I'll throw them a link. If you find .wavs (or whichever format ringtones use, I have no idea) of Vardaman noting his mother's piscatory status or Tull going on about Cash's coffin-building technique, please do let me know. I'M NOT COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT YET! Daily traffic here at the Canard sometimes dips into the single digits, and not just on weekends. In fact, since I gave up the Blogometer I've maybe checked the Statcounter maybe two or three times, mostly just to see if Brandon is still sending me more inbound traffic than anybody save Google (he is). So imagine my surprise this weekend when I found:  Clap your hands say huh? Is what I would have said to myself, except that the specific phrase wouldn't find a place inside my cranium for another 24 hours. Turns out the answer is this:  Well, I'll be damned. Many thanks, guys. Maybe I should promote this site more than I do already (i.e. never). I would, maybe, except I've got a few other things cooking at the moment. It's even possible the Canard will come to a (screeching but not very dramatic) halt in just a few weeks' time as a direct result. I hope that isn't the case, but I should give you fair warning. Of course, the only way to find out is to keep coming back, and if that drives my pageviews up, then I'll just have to accept the consequences. P.S. — If you haven't read about the racist, Linux-loving Buddhist cabbie, that post is right here. |
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Let me think. Well we have never been to the finals before, and this is our most recent finals lost. The 3rd in a row. So that could make it the Mavs worst ever. There was a baseball game I played in where I hit the ball into the gap and some guy made a diving catch to end the game instead of me driving in the winning runs and winning the tournament. I cried in the dugout after that one. There have been some tough rugby losses. Am I supposed to get this reporter a thought out answer and catalog my past, or a catalog answer like “this was a tough one… yadda yadda, that sounds like every other answer ever given to this type of question after a lost game.
