Some of the news that is fit to print

He's ALIVE...

Sorry for the laps. I have been away for several days at a conference in Orlando, Fla. Normally a business trip would provide me time to opine on some matter, but in this case, the hotel I ended up at -- the Holiday Inn International Drive Resort -- did not have any high-speed Internet access. I didn't think there were any hotels that didn't have high-speed connections these days. And have you used a dial-up connection recently? It is painful!

This hotel was, as my sister would say, "just this far from being disgusting." It was one of those places where you don't take your socks off! I went to work out and all but one of the machines were broken.

I guess I may be turning into a snob!? The hotel is located just around the corner from Universal Studios Orlando, but my view was of the I-4 highway. And the entire hotel is green. Even inside the rooms! One night I even was without hot water.

Anyway, I'm back to where the air is cold. Only 17 days until spring!

Happy Valentine's Day

A very happy Valentine's Day!
So Valentine's Day used to be one of those holidays that you avoid, so it is nice to be happy. There is all the pressure and stress about to gift or not to gift. We ended up gifting -- his and his iPod Shuffles, of course.

And we had a super-fab dinner party this weekend for thirty-three of our closest friends. I'll try to post some party pics tonight, but it was a fabulous affair. Most of the credit for that goes to my partner, DMV, who is amazingly talented at tossing these kind of things together. Pre-DMV, I didn't really ever have dinner parties, but now, we love them! This one was a tad bit big for my liking, but... marvelous nonetheless. We had chefs we know from New York who came and cooked, which just make the entire thing all the better.

Two Valentine's Day links...
Slate has a review of the best chocolate's you can buy online. Send me a note and I'll give you my address so you can send tasters along!
The NYT op-ed page had this...
Historically Incorrect Canoodling [NYT, 2.14.2005]
By STEPHANIE COONTZ
For thousands of years, love, passion and marriage were considered a rare and usually undesirable combination.

What do The Gay do on Super Sunday?

See a movie, of course!
Having seen none -- and I mean none -- of the Oscar nominated movies, we are going to see the critically acclaimed Million Dollar Baby, directed and starring Clint Eastwood. Despite the rave reviews, I have low expectations given that I really was underwhelmed by Eastwood's last movie, the critically acclaimed Mystic River [2003]. Despite really amazing performances by Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and the underrated Kevin Bacon, the story was lame. Now I understand that the movie was based on a book -- a book I have not read -- there were horrible plot holes in the movie that left me with all sorts of questions by the end. So, I'll report back on Million Dollar. Meanwhile, we can only hope that we can avoid last year's Super Bowl brouhaha. (As Frank Rich notes this morning, thank goodness Jackson didn't bare both breasts!)

Last year, we went over to our friend's Craig and Mary Beth's place for dinner. We ended up getting really drunk on very good wine and we totally missed the entire game. Oh well! Will this be the second year that I miss the game all together? We'll see.

Hobbling over to my keyboard

We have a gourmet club, which is great fun. It is something like a book club, but we get together and eat and drink. There are five couples. The host couple hosts and sets the menu and assigns who is going to bring what. It makes for great fun because we regularly see people we enjoy and it is not a total burden on anybody because each couple is only responsible for one dish. As they say, it is a win-win for everybody.

So I was pulling together an address list for the group so everybody had names, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, birthdays, anniversaries -- all the important info, you know. When I was putting them together last night, I quickly noted that I am the old man of the group! I'm not an old fogy or anything at age 38, but compared to the youngest member of the group, Misha, who is all of 24.

I sent a note to one of the other members expressing my dismay and she had the kindest words.

You are the single reason why I can't be afraid to age because you are more awesomely young than 99% of the people I know. I am absolutely serious. It is one of the things I love most about you! So don't you worry!

Is it any wonder she is one of my favorite people!

And it is true -- I don't feel my age. I guess that is not all that unusual. My partner is 31, so his friends are all around that age. And there are occasions when I look around the table and say, 'Um, I'm older than everybody here!' That being said, one of our good friends is in her 70s and she can 'hang with the kids' without a problem at all. That seems healthy to me.

Both of my parents have always been good at feeling young and living young. Both are in their 60s, but neither acts it. To the contrary. My mother runs, bikes, does Yoga... and my father is also a fitness nut after having a cancer scare several years ago. So maybe it is genetic.

As the kids say, 'whatever.' (Do they still say that?)

Why do people like winter?

This from the WSJ.com...

An Embarrassment of Cold
Temperatures in Embarrass, Minn., a town about 30 miles south of the Canadian border, fell to 54 degrees (Fahrenheit) below zero today. That nearly broke the state record of 60 below, set in 1996 in Tower, just north of Embarrass. Much of the central U.S. has been in the grip of a deep freeze in recent days, but few have suffered quite as much as Embarrass, population 691. Even International Falls, Minn., billing itself as the Nation's Icebox, was a relatively balmy 44 below. "You keep living, but it gets old after a while," Embarrass Town Clerk Christine Mackai told the Associated Press. She fondly recalled last Thursday, when the weather was more tolerable. "It only got down to 28 below, and that's nothing," she told the AP. "That's no big deal."

I'm growing comfortable being out of touch...

So I am coming to the realization that I am pretty much totally out of touch with the rest of the country. I am also becoming comfortable with that. Case in point -- this whole Randy Moss thing. I am totally and completely stupefied why this is a subject for discussion at all.

For those who may have my sports knowledge, Moss is a football player for the NFL Minnesota Vikings and during a wild card payoff game with the Green Bay Packers this weekend, he faked mooning the crowd. Now he didn't actually do it -- that would have been cool. He faked his. Yet the matter has created something of a firestorm. And apparently he is actually going to be fined for the "obscene gesture." Um, WHAT?

So THIS is what everybody is up in arms about -- parents, protect your children!!!

Is ANYBODY really offended by this?

So apparently there is some history to this that seems to even make it more funny, but instead it has become the first Nipple-gate of the new year. Or remember that foolish hubbub about the Desperate Housewives commercial on Monday Night Football late last year?

I understand I may not be in the norm -- I'm trying to think if there is anything that really could offend me -- but have we really devolved to this point? Can anybody explain it to me?

At the recommendation of former shock jocks Don and Mike, I actually turned to the WP's sports page (HEY! There is a sports page in the paper EVERY day! Who knew!) to read Michael Wilbon's excellent column on the matter.

This righteous outpouring is sickening in its hypocrisy. The NFL would have you believe it's running something as pure as a Girl Scout bake sale on Sunday afternoons, when in fact the NFL has clothing-challenged cheerleaders giving you an eye-full of rump every second of every game.

Teenage boys (and, okay, grown men) tune in hoping to get the equivalent of a mooning. A few hours before Moss's mock mooning on Sunday, the Indianapolis Colts' cheerleaders trotted out wearing chaps, which are meant to emphasize rear ends that are covered in a lot less than uniform pants.

 

I'm going back to my ivory tower.

Campaign sighs...

So as you can tell, I love politics, but the last part of a campaign -- especially a political campaign -- gets exasperating.

Driving in this morning, I saw two campaign signs that I found terrifying – both pro-W, coincidently. Both looked make shift, you know, like they were hand stenciled. One was multiple signs along the median of the road – “The US weapon of mass destruction” and then “Bush-Chaney ’04.” To be honest, I can’t tell if that is pro-W or pro-Kerrey.

The other was, “Leading through faith and prayer. Bush ‘04” OOOOOOOK!

I travel to Hershey, Pa. this afternoon for work, which will be my first trek into a battleground state since I was in Ohio for the Fourth of July weekend. I am there for work, but I’m sure there will be campaign stuff all over the place. I’ll update later.

The other thing about the last week of the campaign is that there is nothing really going on so The Media goes hyper-speculative. The Sunday political shows certainly demonstrated that in spades. All had their roundtables where folks tried to assess what would happen and why and all had political hacks representing the two parties and spinning away. My beloved Meet the Press featured Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe and Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie and a political roundtable. While MTP demonstrated why it is the number one Sunday morning program, my favorite part of the campaign isn't the horse rase. Rather it is the healthy debate of ideas.

Unlike some who say they can’t wait for it all to end, I love the political campaign. It forces us as a country – and our leaders – to pay attention to what is really important. That doesn’t always mean the best decisions are made, but campaigns force us to ask questions and set priorities.

One of the things I love about living in Washington is that it is a company town and that politics is the life blood of the city. And unlike some who say that they avoid political discussions, I relish them because they are at the heart of democracy. I don’t believe I have the answers to everything. To the contrary, through discussion and debate, I formulate my own views and the only way I can do that is by having somebody that sees things differently.

(Just an aside, I love a political debate with an intelligent person. Nothing is more frustrating then holding a discussion with somebody who is just a knee-jerk. When we were in Hilton Head, North Carolina recently, I had the opportunity to meet somebody like that. Her take on the election: If Kerry is elected, the United States will be in serious danger. Seriously!?!)

Most people in Washington don’t take politics personally. They understand that one wins some and one loses some, but most people have a ardent belief that the result of the debate of ideas is wisdom. That debate is at the heart of democracy.

If I have a problem with politics today, it isn’t they money involved. To the contrary, I think that is healthy. Nor is it that some people don’t vote. People will vote when they believe it is important for them to vote, I think. But what is troubling is that the professional campaign managers have become so sophisticated, they don’t wage a debate of ideas. Instead, they hone a message, much the way you market shampoo, that they believe consumers will buy. Thankfully, technology has made it more difficult to create that message. One of the amazing things about this year is that pollsters are having trouble getting a gauge of the numbers because many people only have cell phones and therefore run below the radar of pollsters. So I’m excited about next Tuesday. I guess I just wish it was today… or tomorrow.

Acknowledging everything said above, what were Kerry’s people thinking with the goose hunt?

Argh! He isn't going to ride in a tank now, is he?

Sinclair: America's most reprehensible company?

So we already know that Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcasting Group is essentially a group of right-wing hacks that feel that they can use the public airwaves to wage their agenda. (As NYT columnist Frank Rich noted that Sinclair actually does make Fox News look fair and balanced! "It's hard to imagine an operation more insidious than [Fox owner Rupert] Murdoch's, but the Sinclair Broadcast Group may be it," he said in his column on Sunday.)

The company, the largest owner of television stations outside of the networks themselves, first refused to broadcast ABC News Nightline when anchor Ted Koppel read the names of the fallen soldiers. They felt it was anti-war. Now the company is planning on airing a anti-Kerry movie under the guise that it is news. The group's Washington bureau chief spoke out calling the broadcast 'indefensible,' so yesterday, they fired him! TaDa!

Sinclair Fires Critic of Plan to Broadcast Anti-Kerry Film [WP, 10.19.2004]
By Howard Kurtz
The Washington bureau chief of Sinclair Broadcast Group was fired yesterday after accusing the media company of "indefensible" conduct for planning to air a movie attacking Sen. John Kerry's Vietnam record in the coming days.

The most enjoyable tidbits that come from this story:
* Sinclair Vice President Mark Hyman (who broadcasts commentaries on Sinclair stations) said in a statement: "Everyone is entitled to their personal opinion, including Jon Leiberman. We are disappointed that Jon's political views caused him to speak to the press about company business." The statement called him a "disgruntled employee."
* Leiberman noted that Sinclair has built a new studio for the program.
* Leiberman also noted that Sinclair has not done an hour-long special on any other matter related to the campaign or the war in Iraq.
* The Baltimore Sun, which first quoted Leiberman, today quotes Geneva Overholser, a former editor of The Des Moines Register and ombudsman of The Washington Post, who praised Leiberman for what she termed his courage. "I have a pantheon of heroes, and he's now among them," Overholser said. "He was willing to stand up and say what the news department has to do is stand for fairness and balance."

The NYP editorializes that "Americans are adults, not ignoramuses whose minds will be corrupted by "illegal" advertising." And that is true. I don't question whether citizens can handle it. I question the group that does it and whether such a group shold have access to public airwaves only to carry out their own agenda. This is not a news program in any way. It is a group of very conservative people trying to sway an election. That's fine if they want to do that, but they should have to pay for the air time.

Just an aside: It is not that they are conservative. If Sinclair wanted to broadcast Michael Moore's propoganda film Fahrenheit 9-11, I would be equally outraged. And one can only imagine the consternation among those commentators who are noticably silent right now.

Regardless, this group of thugs are proving themselves to be the most reprehensible company in the country. Congratulations! No small feat!

Find out more about how to act against Sinclair at stopsinclair.org

Sending out our prayers...

One of our best friends, Michelle, just found out that her mother has cancer -- apparently terminal. Michelle is one of those people who the phrase "to know her is to love her" somehow does not seem rediculous. She is a superstar. And one of the things you love the most about her is her love for her family.

In addition, Michelle turns the big three-ohhhh on Friday. This is not the way she should be marking her birthday.

The frustrating thing about these situations is that there is nothing one can really do to help. So instead, we send out our best wishes and prayers.

From the Left Coast...

The traveling TyepPad is in California these days for my little (VERY little) sister's high school graduation... yes, high school... and then my 19-month old nieces's first-ever Disneyland visit.

Just an aside. I acknowled up front that I am not a sports fan. Frankly, if they never played another Super Bowl or if March Madness closed, I would not shed any tears. (Don't get me going on sports!) But I seem to be surrounded by people who are sports nuts... my step-father, for example, who will watch games of teams that he doesn't care about. He even watched cricket or some such thing in Europe on time and seemed to actually care!
Anyway, my father and step-mother have tickets to the Los Angeles Lakers (in addition to just about ever other team and even in town, it seems!). So the first game of the NBA finals happens Sunday at just about the same time that the graudation begins. And they were actually distressed about this! My cousin even defended them! "LA is nuts about the Lakers," she said. Folks at work said that they would think about it too! Um, WHAT?

I'll just be over here jumping off this bridge... but with my luck, they would turn it into some kind of sporting event.

Argh!