Some of the news that is fit to print

The Super Blog.. er, Bowl...

So I do not write about sporting events very often, but the Super Bowl is not really a sporting event, is it? It is generally one of the worst games of the year

As you probably know, the Super Bowl is this weekend...
Featuring the New England Patriots vs. the Panthers
USAToday.com has profiles of both the Patriots and the Panthers

There is a ton to read about the games...
ESPN is ready to go, of course...
As is Sports Illustrated...

The Age of the Bargain Quarterback [WSJ, 1.30.2004] There's a simple way to predict the Super Bowl's outcome: For four consecutive years, the team with the lower-paid passer has won the big game.

As you know, some people watch the game mostly for the ads...

Many Watch Super Bowl for the ads [AP, 1.29.2004] The Super Bowl continues to be about marketing as much as sport, according to people who say they watch the broadcast for more than football.

And there is an entire Web site dedicated to Super Bowl ads... of course there is! AdBowl.com ramps up for Super Sunday You can vote for your favorite ads while watching the Super Bowl. (Via AdRants)

Super Bowl Are Ads Less Extravagant [WSJ, 1.30.2004] Advertisers are taking a tamer approach toward this year's Super Bowl, and some agency people think lingering uncertainty about the economy is fostering the more conservative climate.

Super Bowl Remains Must-Buy TV [NYT, 1.29.2004] A preview of the Ad Bowl and analysis of what this year's event will mean for advertisers.

Love, Wisdom and Dentures Star in Super Bowl Ads [Reuters , 1.27.2004] Three things to remember when watching this Sunday's Super Bowl: You can't munch on potato chips without your teeth, finding a new job should feel like falling in love, and sometimes the underdog prevails.

New Crop of Odd Super Bowl Ads to Debut [AP, 1.22.2004] A new crop of contenders will be taking their shot at immortality at next week's Super Bowl, but they won't be doing it on the football field.

Some Ads to Run During Super Bowl [AP, 1.22.2004] The Super Bowl has become as much a competition among the top creative minds in the advertising industry as it is for NFL players and coaches. Here is a preview of some of the contenders for this year's advertising battle...

and a rundown of the ads themselves... ESPN readers rate the best ads MISC Super Bowl links... Most of these come from Poynter's always interesting Al Tompkins Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest day of the year for the fast-food delivery business. USA Today reported: More pizza will be sold Feb. 1, Super Bowl Sunday, than any other day of 2004. Pizza has become to Super Bowl Sunday what eggs are to Easter. Or candy canes to Christmas. Experts say that's no accident. It's not just because pizza marketers are pushing it so hard. It's also because pizza is the one food that seems to best meet three game-day criteria: It's cheap. It's easy. It's social. People eat a lot of guacamole on Super Bowl Sunday. The Santa Ana, Calif.-based California Avocado Commission said avocado sales for the Super Bowl are about five percent of the annual total. "This Super Bowl Sunday," the CAC said, "Americans will dig into 43.5 million pounds of guacamole, enough to cover Reliant Stadium's football field over seven feet deep, end zone to end zone." Here are some low-fat food tips for Super Bowl parties. Super Bowl coverage is known for what ads run each year. Adweek has coverage. The iTunes ad already has leaked out. What's the connecction between the outcome of the Super Bowl and the direction the stock market will take for the rest of the year? MSNBC explains that one. What's the connection between the Super Bowl and sex? A questionable but interesting survey. Canadian researchers have found a significant jump in the number of car crashes after the Super Bowl telecast. The study, published last year, said that people who supported the winning team were less likely to be involved in a wreck than those who rooted for the losers. ABC News reported: The results aren't surprising, says Dr. Tareg Bey, an emergency room physician and associate clinical professor at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center. "People have drunk alcohol and are in a 'winner' or 'loser' mood. Both can be dangerous when driving a vehicle," Bey says. However, the study found those in a "winner" mood were involved in fewer accidents. There is no truth to the story that domestic violence increases on Super Bowl Sunday. The Houston Chronicle takes a look at the story. Also the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported just before the Super Bowl last year: Last year on Super Bowl Sunday, 45 incidents of domestic violence were reported. An average Sunday in Las Vegas in 2002 had 53 domestic violence incidents. In 2001, 54 people reportedly were attacked during domestic disturbances on Super Bowl Sunday. That was five more than the average Sunday for that year, according to police figures, but far from the most violent day of the year in Las Vegas households. For more super Bowl Legends and Myths, see "Super Bowl Lore: Part of the Game." Also David Mikkelson of the Urban Legends Reference Pages reviews the same myths in "Super Bull Sunday." I like what MSNBC did with the Super Bowl story. They have a cool little interactive screen to play with. Especially if you have not followed the game much before this weekend, it is a quick tutorial to become "Bowl Literate."

Too late you %$3@##@s....

As noted in Slate.com's Today's Papers... the correction of the day...

Too late you %$3@##@s.... From the NYT: "An article and a listing in the Dining section on Wednesday about ways to reduce bacterial contamination in home kitchens referred incompletely to a method of disinfecting sponges and dishcloths by placing them in a microwave oven. They should be damp; if dry, they could catch fire."

Enviro-candidates...

Yes, I love Mother Earth.
Find out if presidential candidates do too with this cool site.... http://www.environment2004.org

Open meetings, VA style...

There are very few subjects I feel more strongly about that open meeting laws... Well, maybe there are a few subjects I feel equally strong about, but... Anyway, I think open meetings are an essential part of the democratic process. Yet leaders generally try to avoid them. Um, WHY?
A case in point from Virginia...

State May Weaken Open-Meetings Law [WP, 1.30.2004] General Assembly Would Be Exempt RICHMOND, Jan. 29 -- Republican leaders in Virginia's House of Delegates want to exempt the legislature from all open-meeting laws, a move that would allow the 61-member majority to hold strategy sessions and policy discussions and vote on laws behind the closed doors of committee rooms.

No comment, please...

Ahem, Told You So [WP, 1.30.2004] We warned Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski on Wednesday that he'd pay a price for violating the sacred rules of Oval Office photo ops -- namely, all pablum and smiles, no substance.

Bush giving patriots a bad name...

The Bush administration is stepping up its efforts to renew the horrible Patriot Act ...

White House Intensifies Efforts to Safeguard Patriot Act [WP, 1.30.2004] The Bush administration stepped up its fight to preserve the controversial USA Patriot Act yesterday, warning that proposed legislation to scale back the law would undermine national security and would face a presidential veto if approved.

Can't get there from here...

One of my favorite stories, which comes by way of Al's Morning Meeting about corporate giants violating the traditional hands-off policy with editorial decisions... even something as "minor" as traffic reports...

Clear Channel Shuts Out O'Hare Since Clear Channel owns more than 1,200 radio stations, this is worth watching nationwide. The Chicago Sun-Times reports: Clear Channel Radio wants to wipe out O'Hare Airport -- at least from all of its traffic reports. In a move that has enraged and appalled staffers at all seven Clear Channel stations in Chicago, the company is ordering its on-air talent to stop reporting Kennedy Expressway travel times to O'Hare -- the landmark end point familiar to generations of motorists. Thanks to a yearlong marketing agreement with Allstate Arena -- the first under Clear Channel's "traffic destination rights program" -- travel times are to be reported "from Downtown to the Allstate Arena" rather than to O'Hare, starting next week. The concert venue and sports facility, formerly known as the Rosemont Horizon, is located near O'Hare in northwest suburban Rosemont.

Kerry botoxed?

Yes, there are all sorts of important developments in the Democratic race for the presidential nomination... Dean cleaning house among his staff -- and asking them to go unpaid. (Is it just me, but I seem to remember that it was just months ago that Kerry fired his campaign staff and was in disarray, so it ain't over until...)

That being said... the real news...
There are all sorts of stories -- mostly in the NY papers -- questioning whether Kerry botoxes...
Here is the Daily News headlined, "The political forehead front"...
And the NYPost, under the headline, "Looks like Big John is trying to save his face"...
and NewsMax.com (how's that for a reputable source)...

On my earlier point, Howard Kurtz writes about the media going hot and cold...

Trailing in the Media Primary, Too [WP, 1.29.2004]
Dean's Hot-and-Cold Press Coverage Sparks Debate Over Objectivity
Howard Dean rode a huge wave of favorable media coverage to the top of the Democratic presidential heap, only to falter because of his own mistakes.

WP on The Scream...

In case you didn't read the editorial in today's WP about Dean's Scream...
this review of it comes from Slate.com's Today's Papers...

The Post's editors peg Howard Dean's disastrous Iowa concession speech as a particular species of gaffe: The kind that matters only because it amplifies what is already widely assumed to be a character flaw. If John Kerry had made a similarly overheated speech, the editors speculate, he would have been praised for shedding his aloofness; if anyone but Dan Quayle had misspelled "potato," or anyone but Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet, those incidents would have been forgotten. "There are legitimate reasons to worry about Mr. Dean's temperament that the speech stirred up but didn't quite exemplify. Mr. Dean's problem is not that he's given to … 'crazy, red-faced rants' [as he said in Letterman's Top Ten, but rather] … his admitted tendency to speak before he thinks."

That being said, a few final squbs on The Scream... (I should be over this by Monday, right!?)

Sharpton had the line of the night from Thursday's debate…

SHARPTON: I wanted to say to Governor Dean, don't be hard on yourself about hooting and hollering. If I had spent the money you did and got 18 percent, I'd still be in Iowa hooting and hollering.

Friday's edition of Slate.com’s Today’s Papers notes…

“Dean's first televised interview with his camera-shy wife was sufficient to rate a number of stories that throw around the words "soft" and "gentle" as though he were a fabric-softener: The WP fronts, and the LAT and NYT go inside with, Dean's continuing attempts at self-effacement. According to the Post, he referred to himself as having "warts" at least four times yesterday, and all three papers report that Dean recited the "Top Ten ways I, Howard Dean, can turn things around" on the Late Show with David Letterman… which I have listed as the next item…

Letterman’s Late Show: “Top Ten Ways I, Howard Dean, Can Turn Things Around”
5. "Go on 'American Idol' and give 'em a taste of these pipes"
4. "Start working out and speaking with Austrian accent"
You can watch it online here

Dean's Post-Scream Show [WSJ, 1.23.2004]
How can enthusiastic presidential candidate Howard Dean ever live down his larynx-busting gaffe in Iowa? Experts offer advice, in less confrontational tones.

Dean Tries a Self-Deprecation Strategy [WP, 1.23.2004]
LEBANON, N.H., Jan. 22 -- Howard Dean said Thursday that he leads with his "heart and not my head," as the onetime front-runner sought to humanize his embattled campaign with self-effacing remarks and a first prime-time TV appearance with his wife.

Reporters Shift Gears on The Dean Bus [WP, 1.23.2004]
Iowa Vote and Outburst Rewrite the Campaign Saga
LEBANON, N.H., Jan. 22 -- The reporters are all talking about the implosion.

Meanwhile, other NH primary stories...

Boston Globe Has it in for Kerry? [Slate]
Timothy Noah: Screwy as it may sound, Kerry really does get unfavorable coverage in the Globe.

N.H Papers' Endorsements Lean to Kerry [E&P]
Late Wednesday afternoon, after a long debate, the Portsmouth Herald remained "deadlocked."

Passion for Passion...

More on Gibson's hyper-Christian upcoming movie...

Gibson 'Passion' Film Wows Christians, Vexes Jews [Reuters, 1.22.2004] It's hard to imagine a movie provoking such contrasting reactions among Jews and Christians as Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," the story of the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ.