It's My Party and I'll Fly if I Want To

Saturday's my birthday, and I've decided to replace the annual theme soiree with a small vacation.

That means Bill O'Reilly will have to find someone else's good time to manipulate on national television this year.

It also means no posting until next week, but I'll catch you back here then.

Have a good one.

The Write Stuff

I officially have a giant journalism crush on Matt Taibbi.

A handful of gems from his latest article for Rolling Stone on the media-fueled Tea Party fiasco that calls itself a unified movement:

A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can't imagine it.

It's a mistake to cast the Tea Party as anything like a unified, cohesive movement — which makes them easy prey for the very people they should be aiming their pitchforks at. A loose definition of the Tea Party might be millions of pissed-off white people sent chasing after Mexicans on Medicaid by the handful of banks and investment firms who advertise on Fox and CNBC.

It's not like the Tea Partiers hate black people. It's just that they're shockingly willing to believe the appalling horseshit fantasy about how white people in the age of Obama are some kind of oppressed minority. That may not be racism, but it is incredibly, earth-shatteringly stupid.

Arguments with Tea Partiers always end up like football games in the year 1900 — everything on the ground, one yard at a time.

Of course, the fact that we're even sitting here two years after Bush talking about a GOP comeback is a profound testament to two things: One, the American voter's unmatched ability to forget what happened to him 10 seconds ago, and two, the Republican Party's incredible recuperative skill and bureaucratic ingenuity.

Do yourself a favor. Take 10 minutes and read the whole thing. It's that good.

h/t Chez

When Good Things Happen to Great People

Miles O'Brien is back. From PBS:

At a time when many news organizations are reducing or have altogether eliminated the coverage of science news, the PBS NewsHour will increase its commitment to science journalism both on air and online.

With the goal of enhancing the profile of its science, engineering and technology reporting – and increasing the science literacy of its audience – the PBS NewsHour has named veteran journalist Miles O'Brien as its new science reporter.

O'Brien will lead the NewsHour Science News Unit to serve as a definitive, continuing source of reliable, up-to-the-minute coverage of this important and vibrant element in the lives of millions of Americans.

Miles is one of the good ones. Here's what I said when he got let go from CNN back in 2008.

As with Judy Woodruff (whose show was my first on CNN), CNN's loss is PBS's gain. Big time.

What He Said

Sometimes someone nails it better than I ever could.

Thank you, Jamie. Spot on.




UPDATE: Turns out there's video too:

Good Friday

Scratch that.

Excellent Friday.

WaPo:

CNN Worldwide president Jim Walton issued an email to CNN staff Friday morning notifying them that Jon Klein, president of CNN/US is out, just days after completing his overhaul of the cable news network's primetime lineup, hiring "America's Got Talent" judge Piers Morgan to replace Larry King, and a new talk show co-hosted by Eliot Spitzer and syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker.

Thank G-d. It's about time. He's a despicable human being. Good riddance.

UPDATE: Chez has reposted some of his thoughts on Klein. And sadly, as true and well-written as these pieces are, they only scratch the surface of the crap this man pulled over the course of his years at CNN.

Playing Catch

A couple of days ago I got a solicitation packet in the mail from a Native American education fund. These always make me slightly uncomfortable because they tend to include pages and pages of address labels I don't want to use but feel odd throwing away.

This plea was particularly aggressive in that it contained multiple "gifts" - a calendar, address labels, stickers, notepads, the picture and story of an unsponsored child, and a dreamcatcher.

I wasn't moved to donate, but I thought the dreamcatcher was too cool to toss. So I came up with an alternate solution. I hung it above my door and renamed it.

It's now my guiltcatcher.

You Missed a Spot

Apologies for the slow posting around here lately. I've been distracted.

In addition to trying to finish "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" (my least favorite of the Larsson trilogy, by far), I just got a couple of new books. One is Landmark - The Washington Post's take on the health care battle and bill. The second is a workbook on Spanish verb conjugations. I started to think a simple review of the basics would help get my Spanish back up to speed. So far so good.

I've also taken the liberty of repainting a couple of walls in my apartment. It started with one accent wall, but this morning, I used the leftover paint on a second. Today's project went a lot more smoothly than yesterday's. I chalk it up to having had practice.

Here's the FB update I posted after finishing the first:



The wall looks blue in the photo, but it's actually a dark lavender.

As for stuff you could be reading online while I slack, I'd recommend Chez on Jon Stewart's Oct 30th Rally to Restore Sanity. I know it's tough for people to get away, but wouldn't it be amazing if reasonable and rational saved the day?

Moving Pictures

During my first summer in DC about 5 years ago, a friend and I went out to Ballston for dinner and then decided to walk home. It was dark and late, but the weather was gorgeous, and since we are both huge walkers, it was totally doable. I think we figured out it was a little more than 6 miles.

On our way back into the District, we passed the Iwo Jima Memorial and climbed down into the park to take a closer look. We sat under the monument for a while and just let the image sink in. It's really something else at night. Eerie. Haunting. Powerful.

This past Saturday night, I went out to Virginia for a birthday party, and on the way home, I suggested my friend and I take a slight detour. This friend had never seen the Memorial before - let alone at night - so we stopped, and for me, the experience was just as moving the second time around. It's impossible to capture the full range of emotions in photos, but here's a sense of what we saw:






These were all taken with my Blackberry. I'd love to get back out there sometime with a real camera and try and do it justice.

Misery Loves Musical Company

A huge Metro fail yesterday morning kicked off a chain of events that led to an infinitely frustrating - and unnecessarily expensive - Wednesday.

Then someone posted the latest from the "Arlington Rap" guy on Facebook, and all was right with the world again:

Theme Week(s)

I've been lucky enough to spend the last couple of weekends at a gorgeous house out on the water, and last Saturday we went for a cruise around the bay. Here are a couple of cool photos from that outing:





Of course, the field trips have given birth to countless jokes about boats, scantily clad women, rap videos, and this SNL parody:



Then in an odd twist of coincidence, the following popped up this morning in the list of wireless networks available in my area:



I love when the universe has a sense of humor.

As Seen In DC

Caught these guys - Miami Horror - last night on U Street. Great gig. They still need to work out the small kinks (and learn how to make a better video), but once that happens, they're golden.

The More Things Change...

...the more they stay exactly the same.

Back in July 2008, HCAN partnered with PSA to made the following video called "Insurance Company Rules." It illustrates the absurdity of health insurance companies' tendency to make up the rules as they go along:



This morning - more than 2 years later - I had the pleasure of experiencing Insurance Company Rules firsthand.

I got an Explanation of Benefits in the mail a couple of days ago that made no sense. I see a doctor who charges me $125, and UnitedHealthCare reimburses me a percentage of that $125. Then the doctor ups her rate by $10, and UHC pays me the same percentage on the $135. That was as of 8/7/10. A week later, the allowance drops to $115.

I called UHC to find out why, and their reason defies all logic. They said their "usual and customary" formula allows a maximum of $115, and everything up until 8/14/10 has been a mistake. We're talking about more than 10 months of mistake.

What happens next is unbelievable. Because I called for an explanation, UHC is now sending my account back to Claims to recalculate, and if I owe them money (which they will undoubtedly conclude), they will send me a bill for the difference. I'll be punished for asking questions. If I disagree with their assessment, they say, I have the right to appeal. To them.

Since UHC's formula seems to be more "flexible and arbitrary" than "usual and customary," I'm officially instituting a little policy of my own. I'll accept a letter informing me of their reimbursement rate moving forward, but I won't indulge any effort to collect payments they say they "lost" due to their own 10-month miscalculations.

UHC doesn't need more of my money. From the most recent HCAN report on CEO compensation:

CEO Stephen Hemsley of UnitedHealth Group banked $107.5 million in 2009, including $98.6 million from exercising stock options.

My premiums went up again a couple of months ago. No change in health status. No change in policy. Just a greedy health insurance company trying to squeeze every last dollar out of the little people. As far as I'm concerned - as far as this bogus claim is concerned - they're not going to see a dime.

They Shouldn't

TV Newser:

ABC News says that it will have people there to cover the event, and afterward producers and executives will meet to decide what images to show on-air.

A CBS News spokesperson says: "We will cover the story with the appropriate context, as we would any other news story"

An NBC News spokesperson says: "Our policy is to cover news events as they take place, and report on them with context and perspective. The determination about what images are appropriate and will be broadcast will be made by NBC News management after the event happens."

A CNN spokesperson says: "We will dedicate resources to the story and provide coverage as news warrants."

Isn't this Parenting 101? Stop giving the delinquent child attention. If you ignore the tantrums, eventually they stop. Just because someone does something inflammatory doesn't mean it's news or needs to be covered. Let the crazies be crazy in a vacuum. Without an audience, they're not significant. They're just crazy. The media creates madness when it rewards bad behavior with attention.

When I worked for CNN, they were cautious about putting blog content on the air without our vetting and revetting. The argument was - and rightly so - that CNN is a megaphone, and the power of that megaphone should not be underestimated. The network's ratings were higher back then and there were more true journalists in house than there are now, but that's no reason for the standard to slip so dramatically.

This isn't national news. It's a bad local story on a slow day, and even then, a good News Director would refuse to send a crew on the grounds that it's batsh*t insanity.

Where is the good to come of burning a holy book? Any holy book? Why encourage it?

I would have more respect for the network that didn't budge than the hordes that do. That's a station I'd watch, and if I were an advertiser, it's where I'd spend my money. I'd also make a point of publicizing why.

Of course the networks will argue they have to cover the burning because it's news, ignoring the fact that they made it news. They shouldn't have given this moron a microphone - let alone a megaphone - in the first place.

Time to Pack It In

Just when you think TV can't get any more pathetic, it tops itself.

Last time I was down in Miami, my Dad asked if I'd ever seen "Baggage." It's on the Game Show Network, but saying it's a game show would imply that the contestants actually have a chance at winning something desirable. I hadn't ever seen it before, but we watched a bit, and it's really something else.

Hosted by Jerry Springer (enough said), one guy or girl contestant stands up in front of three potential dates. Each potential date has three bags - small, medium, and large - and each bag contains a flaw. As the women or men open their bags and reveal the unappealing characteristics about themselves, the contestant has to decide what's acceptable and what's a deal breaker. The dates are whittled down until it's just one guy and one girl. Then the chosen date gets to see the contestant's baggage and decide whether he or she can live with it too. If so, the two ride off into the dysfunctional sunset.

I know everyone's got issues, but I can't imagine why anyone would want to compete on a game show where the prize is someone else willing to expose his/her worst qualities on national television.

One of today's women had the following in her small baggage: "I spend $150 every week on pot"

Her explanation? She is a medical marijuana patient, and it helps her tap into her creativity. I'm going to go out on a limb and say lack of creativity (a medical condition? really?) is the least of her problems.

Ick

Land

Water

Air

A Shell of an Idea

Found via friends on Facebook. Totally cute and worth sharing: