What do McCain and a clueless blonde have in common?

Great LA Times story here on McCain's "YouTube gap."

Coming soon to a cell phone near you....

PHISHING!!

We all get those "phishing" e-mails that look so authentic. The most popular ones seem to originate from Bank of America or EBay.

It's a simple scam; the e-mail says your account has been compromised or inactive but if you click on the link and update your account information everythng will be just fine.

Of course savvy computer users aren't fooled by the links that lead to some bogus website in China that's been set up to look like a real Bank of America site.

Most people just hit delete. Especially when the e-mail seems to be from Bank of America and you have a Wachovia account.

But there are always some who are unsophisticated enough to fall for the scam.

And now the "phishers" are trying something different.

They're sending instant "phishing" messages to cell phones.

I shot a photo of my first "phishing" message received yesterday.

A vist to the EPPI Card website shows that they are aware of the problem.And now you've been warned!!!

Fear factor

UPDATE: It just occurred to me that perhaps the Sun-Sentinel hired someone from Channel 7 to run their website!

I'm old enough to remember when newspapers provided information not hype! What's the point of this?

Rupert likes Obama

Rupert Murdoch: love him or hate him, you can't ignore him.

Some fascinating insights here on his thinking about the state of newspapers and also what he thinks of Obama:("rock star") and McCain:(“unpredictable”). Read the story and watch the videos.

Rumors

Saw this on The Daily Pulp today. Thought I'd share. It's too good not to.

Andres O to right-wingers: "Go ahead, make my day!"

Looks like the Herald website is going a little "tabloid" on us today with exclamation points in the headline and the aggressive invitation for a "throwndown" to all the right-wing readers who will surely show up to "confront" Andres.

Should make for interesting reading ....and of course drive up those page views!

Eliott Rodriguez, news anchor, rap star!

You know him, you love him, Mr. Excitement and my friend Eliott Rodriguez, news anchor at CBS4, who's been lulling who once lulled Miami audiences to sleep, tells me he has a new gig.

"E-Rod" has launched a new career as a rap star!

Well, sort of. He sent me an e-mail telling me that his voice is "prominently featured" (along with colleague Shomari Stone) on the new album of the socially challenged rapper Foxy Brown.

Click here to listen to a sample. Once you get to the page click on the #1 song sample "Brooklyn's Don Diva"

Don't quit your day job Eliott! ;=)

John McCain in his own words...whatever they are

Wed May 28, 2008 1:08am EDT
By Tim Gaynor
DENVER (Reuters) - Republican candidate John McCain edged further away from U.S. President George W. Bush on foreign policy on Tuesday even as he accepted Bush's help in raising much-needed campaign dollars for his White House bid.

If that left you scratching your head, just watch the video!

Another day on South Beach

UPDATE: From today's Herald:
BY JENNIFER LEBOVICH
jlebovich@MiamiHerald.com

Miami Beach police arrested a 24-year-old driver Monday after he struck two cars, fled from police on foot and then forced himself into the home of an elderly couple.

Seption L. King was charged with several offenses, including leaving the scene of an accident with serious injuries, fleeing and eluding an officer, battery on a law enforcement officer and battery on a law enforcement dog.

Here's what happened, according to Miami Beach police Detective Juan Sanchez:

King, in a white Mercedes-Benz sport utility vehicle, got into an accident in the 800 block of Ocean Drive just after 3 p.m.

He fled from officers and then got into another accident at Eighth Street and Meridian Avenue in which someone was injured. That person was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center and was in stable condition.

King's SUV flipped over and he ran from police, forcing his way into a house in the 600 block of Lenox Avenue. He hid in the laundry room, tussling with police before K-9 officers arrested him.

Neither the officers, nor the K-9s, were injured.
-----------

A few pics of a bad crash at 8th St. and Meridian Ave on Miami Beach Monday afternoon.

Serious but not unlike any other accident except that cops say that it started with a guy hitting a another car on Ocean Drive and then fleeing and hitting a car with some innocent people at Meridian Ave.

The people were taken to the hospital and the bad guy ran away but was caught.

Haven't seen anything on the Herald's website or on TV.

Today is Memorial day

Take a minute to ponder the real meaning of the day....and also remember those who even though they made it home their lives will never be the same.

Dispatch from the front lines / South Beach

I am constantly amazed at all the hysteria from locals surrounding Memorial Day weekend here on South Beach. 

Today (Sunday) me and my friend Tamara from New Times ventured out to see the sights. Everyone was friendly and "tight" and enjoying the vibe.

Talk of getting out of town or hunkering down etc. is just nonsense in my opinion. It's just like a convention of bankers or accountants...only more "chill."

The reality is that the crowds -- noticeably smaller this year -- only congregate in one small geographic area of South Beach and the rest of the beach is just as navigable as any other weekend. One Miami Beach police sergeant said he did notice that eastbound traffic on the MacArthur was lighter than normal as he drove home at 11pm Saturday night.

Another police source reported everything was going smoothly with only "random acts of stupidity."

Best overheard pick up line of the day!

Enjoy the pics!

Lots of "eye candy"

Bikes were everywhere

Chrome and metal as far as the eye can see

Scene at Collins and 15th Street

Ocean Drive

On the way to a call...the guy in the back had the theme from "Cops" blaring from his car's loudspeaker!

the God Squad keeping the peace

Ocean Drive

Surveying the scene from the Victor

Kodak moment

Is this what they mean by "pimped out?"

This guy took a wrong turn I think...may have been on the way to Mardi Gras!

Spring fashion for the "thug" in your life

Visiting "the 305" from "the 404"

Scene at Armani Exchange...why do clothing stores need DJ's anyway??

Ocean Drive

Sign at Nicole Miller...probably not her customer base anyway.

It's yellow but it's not Gatorade!

from the AP:

"CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Clearwater residents could someday be drinking treated sewage.

City officials are looking to meet the ever-increasing demand for drinking water with purified wastewater. They say recycling wastewater would take pressure off the aquifer, cut the amount of sewage running into local waters and eventually trim water bills."

Maybe the lede should have been: The water in Clearwater might not be so clear any longer if city officials get their way.

Look for more in a Jay Leno monologue next week.

I also posted an item on this from the LA Times a while back.

We have a blog so you don't have to!

EDITED: Friday night @ 11:15pm

I love the NY Times and I especially love the Sunday NY Times.

I read it whenever possible but at five bucks a pop I usually end up reading it online which is not the same as the actual paper. But it sure beats the Sunday Herald.

One of the things I like about the Sunday Times is the magazine.

Years ago they actually had articles worth reading. Now I just look at the magazine for the photography.

They print the work of some incredibly talented photographers. And who doesn't like looking at great photographs?

The stories in The Magazine are another matter.

One of the reasons I don't read the articles is that lately they just seem to be self-absorbed meanderings of snotty little rich kids with Ivy League college degrees.

A few weeks ago they had a cover piece entitled "Young Gay Rites; Why would gay men in their 20's rush to the altar?"
The lede paragraph:

"LAST NOVEMBER IN BOSTON, Joshua Janson, a slender and boyish 25-year-old, invited me to an impromptu gathering at the apartment he shares with Benjamin McGuire, his considerably more staid husband of the same age. It was a cozy, festive affair, complete with some 20 guests and a large sushi spread where you might have expected the chips and salsa to be.

Uhhh; no thanks! It was written by someone named Benoit Denizet-Lewis; who The Times tells us has also written a book called "America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life."

Well I skipped Mr. Denizet-Lewis's piece (whose very name screams to the world: "I am in love with myself and my hyphenated name!") but I did enjoy the photographs
which were extremely well-done and quite amusing. They reminded me of that campy TV ad for Enzyte, the male enhancement tablet.

This week The Times Magazine has found someone else with nothing to say and who has managed to say it in slightly under 8,000 words in the magazine's cover story.

It's written by a hot-looking tattooed, 26 year-old Brooklyn writer and blogger named Emily Gould. On her blog she writes about her life which judging from the lede of her story isn't much of a life at all.
The first graph:

"Back in 2006, when I was 24, my life was cozy and safe. I had just been promoted to associate editor at the publishing house where I’d been working since I graduated from college, and I was living with my boyfriend, Henry, and two cats in a grubby but spacious two-bedroom apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I spent most of my free time sitting with Henry in our cheery yellow living room on our stained Ikea couch, watching TV. And almost every day I updated my year-old blog, Emily Magazine, to let a few hundred people know what I was reading and watching and thinking about."

You know you're in for a rough ride when the first paragraph of a NY Times Magazine piece contains the line: "I spent most of my free time sitting with Henry in our cheery yellow living room on our stained Ikea couch, watching TV."

Makes you want to read every word, huh?

Anyway, in the story she prattles on about her online life and her blog which by the way is called "Emily Magazine, I have a blog so you don't have to." It soon becomes evident that when Emily isn't watching TV she's blogging about every bit of minutiae that is her vapid life in excruciating, mind-numbing detail.

Consider Emily's ode to bacon:

"Like I said, I’m not good at writing about sex, or maybe no one is. But the way I feel about last night is the way I felt about bacon after I started eating meat again after 10 years of vegetarianism. Which was: I wanted everyone to understand how important, how absolutely essential, bacon is. I wanted to tell people about bacon. I actually did tell people, several times. ‘‘Have you had bacon? It’s like a potato chip made out of meat!’’ Bacon. Man, bacon is delicious!"

Emily's boyfriend Henry appears in her blog often:

"Once, I made fun of Henry for referring to “Project Runway” as “Project Gayway.” He worried that “people” — the shadowy, semi-imaginary people who read my blog and didn’t know Henry well enough to know that he wasn’t a homophobe — would be offended. He insisted that I take down the offending post and watched as I sat at my desk in our bedroom, slowly, grudgingly making the keystrokes necessary to delete what I’d written. As I sat there staring into the screen at the reflection of Henry standing behind me, I burst into tears. And then we were pacing, screaming at each other, through every room of our apartment, facing off with wild eyes and clenched jaws."

It appears that before Emily's debut in the NY Times hardly anyone read her blog.

Not any more; her anonymity is history. Her last blog post has 142 comments.

And her NY Times Magazine piece which is online but hasn't even hit the streets yet has garnered over 900 comments on 37 online pages, many of them scathing as only comments on nytimes.com can be. And infinitely more entertaining than Emily's ponderous screed.

Three of my favorites:

"Ms. Gould, there is a very good reason that we cannot read each other's thoughts. The disconnect between the brain and mouth often keeps us out of trouble. Since we are a social animals this is very important in maintaining social bonds in our society. Apparently the blog-generation has short circuited this needed disconnect by channeling every single worthless thought/idea straight to the World Wide Web.

Live and learn.
— Eric Simpson, Rahway, NJ

and

"To the 25 minutes I won't get back for reading this article, the minute or two it takes me to write this comment, and the next few hours I waste to see if I even get posted, let me add:

Those who can, do; those who can't, blog
— papercut61, Nevada"

and

"Always nice to see a young person's journey to new insights.

Always depressing when those turn out to be what is obvious to a ten year old.

A tip, Ms Gould: masturbation in public is never in good taste. and tends to lose its charm as you get older.
— D Donaldson, Toronto"

The piece has already stirred up a shit storm among some members of the journalism community and New York's effete and elite who are carping about why The New York Times would turn over prime print real estate to someone as narcissistic and self-absorbed as Emily. But then I'm guessing that a lot of writers who get in The New York Times Magazine belong in that category.

I wonder if Miami has an equivalent of Emily Gould? Probably.



By the way, here's some great video of Emily sparring with Jimmy Kimmel about her work at Gawker.com. They kind of ganged up on her but, hey, she's a big girl!

I agree, totally!

photo: Lisa Poole / AP

"Please, please do what you can to cure the verbal virus that seems increasingly rampant among your generation."

DAVID MCCULLOUGH -
Pulitzer Prize-winning author, imploring Boston College's 2008 graduates to cut back on using words such as like, awesome and actually

-from TIME.com

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough has a suggestion for what young people can do for their countries. "Please, please do what you can to cure the verbal virus that seems increasingly rampant among your generation," McCullough implored Boston College's class of 2008 at commencement ceremonies. He said he is particularly troubled by the "relentless, wearisome use of words" such as like, awesome and actually. "Just imagine if in his inaugural address John F. Kennedy had said, 'Ask not what your country can, you know, do for you, but what you can, like, do for your country actually," he said. Graduates apparently thought his speech was, like, awesome. They gave him a standing ovation.

Going from bad to worse

So tonight we get word that the Herald might be getting ready to lay off 230 employees. It's just a rumor but rumors these days at the Herald have a way of becoming painful reality.

What's not a rumor is that the Herald's parent company McClatchy is struggling to get costs in line and reduce debt.

The Fort Worth Star Telegram--McClatchy owned--announced today that it's selling an "annex building" connected to its main building and some parking lots it owns.

Also today McClatchy announced that it has bought back some $300 million of its publicly traded bonds.

"The buyback was supposed to total $250 million but was expanded because so many bondholders were interested in selling their notes back to the company."

Kind of reminds you of those old silent movies where people are trapped in a snowbound cabin and start burning the furniture to stay warm.

The Herald's had a "For Sale" sign on the property directly in front of its building for some time.

McClatchy headquarters must also be a very depressing place to work. Just go to Google and type in
"McClatchy" and "debt."

As far as layoffs the Herald can't afford to lose any more people without completely sacrificing quality which is practically non-existent at this point.

Consider this headline (see below) on a story tonight on their website. The story was clearly about some sort of celebration in Little Haiti over the weekend but the headline writer's thoughts and head were in another place. Literally.

Right now my sources describe the Herald as a ship without a rudder. Morale, as I've written before, is rock bottom. Many people there are going through the motions.

Some care deeply about their craft and the predicament they are in.

Others couldn't care less and are stuck in the past.

I recently spoke with one very popular columnist and told this person that if I was in charge they'd be writing a blog.

Response? "I don't have time to write a blog; I'm busy writing my column and checking stuff all day."

Keep in mind that this person produces exactly two 700 word columns a week, period.

There are other problems as well. Photographers are working with malfunctioning cameras because there's literally no money to buy new ones or get the existing cameras fixed.

So while the word of 230 layoffs is just a rumor at this point I wouldn't be surprised if the rumor turned out to be true.

Heard something interesting? Email me your tips!

Just a thought

Is it just me or does it sometimes seem that all of the big shots in this town at any given time are either under investigation, indicted, convicted, awaiting trial, on trial, entering prison or leaving prison?

Consider this short item on the Herald's website today:

The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office dropped 25 counts of gambling and related charges this week against erstwhile Miami-Dade mayoral candidate Jay Love, owner of Hooligans in Pinecrest.
Love's attorney, Ben Kuehne, said Love resolved some administrative issues he had with state regulators and "the state determined that was sufficient resolution."
Love made an unsuccesful bid for county mayor in 2004.

While Jay Love may be out of the woods, his lawyer Ben Kuehne has his own problems and when all is said and done he may belong in more than one of the categories above.

Pictures you won't soon forget!

Some of the year's best photography from all over the world.
PDN Photo Annual 2008.

caption for picture above:
Photographer: David Maitland
Title: Bush Meat
Description: In their preparation for the bush meat trade, monkeys are thrown onto open fires to burn off their fur prior to being sold at food markets throughout central West Africa. Despite being banned, the consumption of bush meat remains popular and presents a serious threat to both wildlife and humans‹the wildlife is threatened with extinction and humans run the risk of contracting deadly diseases like Ebola and HIV. This is a picture of the Gabon Black Colobus monkey. Food Market, Libraville, Gabon.

caption for picture above:

Photographer: Stephen Shore
Title: A Little Bit Country
Concept: Ocala, Florida's last great rural enclave.
Publication: T: The New York Times Style Magazine
Photo Editor: (Senior) Judith Puckett-Rinella
Art Director: (Creative) Janet Froelich, (Senior) David Sebbah, Chris Martinez
Designer: (Senior) Elizabeth Spiridakis

Unopposed, so far

Miami Dade mayor Carlos Alvarez, in a bid for a second term, showed up at a fundraiser Tuesday night at the home of a supporter on Miami Beach.

So far, no one has filed to challenge him which is probably why he was in such a good mood. With him is Miami Beach mayor Matti Bower who provided a few laughs.

Just shut the f**k up!

Chutzpah!!!...from a Miami Herald story on the arrest of a murder suspect who was thrown out of Mansion after it was discovered he was carrying a knife:

"We are pleased that Mansion's vigilant security played an integral role in apprehending this individual, and that our work with Miami Beach police helps to keep our community safe," Mansion spokeswoman Vanessa Menkes said in a statement.

For that ambidextrous bit of spin, this cup's for you Vanessa!

The Herald: English skills preferred but not mandatory - cont.

Actually it's "smoky" not "smokey" unless we're talking about a bear!

Newspapers...more bad news

A new round of buy-outs at the Washington Post has cleared "the newsroom of 100 more bodies."

"How does that affect me?" you say, "I read the Miami Herald."

Well, if a paper as important and influential as the Washington Post has to resort to such drastic measures to get costs in line, can the Herald be far behind?

The answer is you ain't seen nothing yet! I'm predicting more bad news for the Herald. Soon. The hard truth is that the Herald can ill afford to lose any more experienced people; they're running on fumes now.

And The Post is not alone. The New York Times is also in the midst of offering buyouts to key staffers.

The troubling thing about this round of buyouts is the fact that very experienced journalists are being shown the door.

Newspapers are in critical condition. I never went to medical school but I know that when a patient is on life support you don't cure the illness by ripping out the patient's heart.

Stay tuned.

NYT review of Hiaasen's golf book - Ouch!

The New York Times has a review Carl Hiaasen's golf book, “The Downhill Lie” in the paper today.

It's the second review of his book in the Times in two weeks.

He's probably wishing that they'd stopped with the first.

Carl Hiaasen is a great journalist and a great writer but odds were some point he was going to roll snake eyes or least bogey with one of his books.

Don't worry about Carl. He can do no wrong here in Miami and the book is #9 on the NYT bestseller list. He'll be be just fine.

But he'll probably wince when he reads these lines in Janet Maslin's review today:

"Who wants to read sentences like this: 'In the midst of butchering a long par-4, I improbably holed out a full 7-iron for a birdie?'"

"Who cares to discover that the shaft of one of Mr. Hiaasen’s golf clubs is whippy?"

"Who wants to be prey to the Father’s Day hucksterism of Mr. Hiaasen’s pretty little pink-and-green gift item for golfers, 'The Downhill Lie?'"

"The ordinarily snappy author now identifies himself as a golf-loving grandpa with a bum knee, an apparent midlife crisis and a cadre of Knopf editors happy to indulge him in “The Downhill Lie” as a boondoggle. One of them played golf with Mr. Hiaasen. Another kept reminding the writer that the worse he played, the more amusingly he could write. His material was skimpy enough for him to write the Knopf people into his story."

OUCH!!

However, for the same amount of money Janet Maslin got for writing that review I could have given the Times a much briefer and snappier review of the book. It probably would have gone something like this:

"The only thing more boring than playing or watching golf is reading about it. Period!"

The Herald: English skills preferred but not mandatory

Click to enlarge

Lincoln Road rules of etiquette

Just a few observations from a sweltering Lincoln Rd. on Sunday.
Who can blame this guy for walking down Lincoln Rd. chugging a cold, frosty Heineken from a paper bag? It was hot as hell Sunday! But if that's what you want to do please be discreet and try not to draw attention to yourself. However that's a bit of a challenge when you're 6'5" tall and screaming drunken profanities at passersby.

By all means bring your dog for a walk on Lincoln Rd. but please don't do this. Dogs aren't babies or little children and behavior like this, in the eyes of some, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Dogs like (and need) to walk and explore and scratch and sniff. Actually had it been up to me I would have let the drunk guy go and arrested this woman.

Hemingway and Sting...so similar

from the Miami Herald review by Michael Hamersley of Sting's concert in West Palm Beach Saturday night:

"The bearded Sting, who's pushing 60, looked cool and youthful, a bit like Hemingway in a cut-off black T-shirt."

Hemingway: Great writer but reportedly drank a quart of whiskey a day the last 20 years of his life.

Sting: Physically fit, vegan, practices yoga and was an avid runner.

Yeah Michael, great analogy...they are so similar! And if I didn't know better I'd say they were separated at birth!


thanks to Tamara for the heads up

Time to lawyer up!

One of Texas's most prominent personal injury attorneys was in critical condition Friday after being hurt when a fire engine struck his Bentley in Oak Lawn.

Late Night Blues - Saturday edition

Not really blues....The great Jesse Belvin. (December 15, 1932 – February 6, 1960)

Crisis!

photo: Jonathan Hayward / Canadian Press

"Biodiversity underpins the health of the planet and has a direct impact on all our lives."

COLIN BUTFIELD -
head of campaigns at World Wildlife Fund UK, after a study found that nearly a third of the world's wildlife has been lost since 1970

-from TIME.com

Who's in charge at the Herald? Saturday night edition

From the Herald's website Saturday night:Main page screen grab (note story link circled in red)

Follow the main page link and....no story!

At what point does someone in management say "enough is enough, let's start running a real newspaper,"? Not anytime soon, I guess!

Father's Day reminder

Father's Day is June 15th ... just one month away.

My friend Rick Bragg has written a well received book on his father called "The Prince of Frogtown."

The book is the third in a series of books that Rick has written tracing the Alabama roots of his family.

In the first, "All Over but the Shoutin'," Rick told a story of growing up in rural Alabama and going on to becoming a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the New York Times. The book is now required reading for all freshmen at universities in Alabama.

In his second book "Ava's Man," Rick tells the story of his maternal grandfather, Charlie Bundrum through "funny and painful anecdotes."

With "The Prince of Frogtown," Rick comes full circle and tells the story of an alcoholic father he hardly knew and weaves in the story of his own relationship with his 10 year-old stepson.

Rick will be here in Miami on June 9th at 7pm to read and sign copies of his book at Books and Books in Coral Gables. We're pretty fortunate to have him here because he's only doing about 2 dozen events in connection with the book.

The cool thing about the event being on the 9th of June is that it's a week before Father's Day.

So if you're looking for a gift for a dad who loves reading, I think this book would be perfect. And if you really want to surprise your father, bring him to the reading.

And if you've never been to a Rick Bragg reading you are in for a treat. If you attend the reading on the 9th I guarantee you won't be bored. He's funny as hell!

As one woman in Mississippi put it: "...and though he has a serious side to him, he's really funny. I think he could make a living as a stand-up comic if he ever got tired of writing."

Just about everywhere Rick travels in the South these days he attracts standing-room only crowds and more often than not a reporter from the local paper shows up and does a story on him. I think this one that appeared earlier this week in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger is one of the best.

So if you're looking for a great Father's Day gift, allow me to shamelessly recommend "The Prince of Frogtown."

"Teflon Tom" gets a new gig!

"The past is never dead, it is not even past."~William Faulkner

---

In case the Herald "forgets" to run this item in the paper tomorrow I'm posting it herewith: TOM FIEDLER NAMED DEAN OF BU'S COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION

I'm sure many local bloggers and pundits much smarter than I will be weighing in over the next few days on Tom's appointment.

However I couldn't let this line in the press release pass without commenting:

"As the newspaper’s executive editor, Fiedler was a stickler for journalism ethics, particularly after reporters working for The Herald’s Spanish-language sister publication, El Nuevo Herald, were caught moonlighting for a US-government-owned, anti-Castro news service in 2006."

Ahh; if only it were that simple.

There are tons of stories on the El Nuevo scandal archived on the Internet if anyone wants to take the time to look them up. There's a little something for everybody.

There are stories that make it look as though Tom Fiedler is God's gift to journalism and of course there are those who think that Fiedler is the devil incarnate. And who can forget Tom's hilarious ruminations comparing Spanish-language radio listeners and chihuahuas?

I'm sure the press release writer at Boston U ran the final version by Tom. But I wonder if the writer bothered to read this story about how Tom "caught" those El Nuevo reporters and the sh*t storm that followed.

An internal review of The Miami Herald's coverage of reporters at el Nuevo Herald accepting fees for appearing on the government-sponsored Radio Marti and TV Marti found the initial story was flawed because of its Page One placement and "accusatory tone," incomplete background, and decision to have it "rushed into print."

The story is about a report written by former editor Clark Hoyt (who is now ombudsman for the NY Times) on the numerous blunders made by the Herald in the reporting of the El Nuevo scandal...under Tom's leadership of course.

Herald publisher Jesus Diaz was jettisoned from the Herald in Oct. 2006 in the wake of the scandal.

And there are some who believe that Fiedler's "retirement" announcement soon after in late 2006 was no coincidence although according to this report he'd been seeking to leave the Herald for some time.

As for Fiedler being a "stickler for ethics" who can forget his ham-fisted handling of the firing of Jim Defede? Or this bit of intrigue!

So in case the Herald "forgets' to print the news tomorrow of Tom's appointment or if it does but "forgets" to print everything about Tom's tenure just remember that you read it here.

No thanks; I'll have a beer instead...

Los Angeles Eyes Sewage as a Source of Water

Exposing Bush's lies

Part 1


Part 2

A nice round number

If you check out my Bush Countdown Clock located in the right hand column of this page you'll see that George Bush has 250 days and a few hours left in office.

For those of you who like nice round numbers perhaps this day will be a cause for celebration.

Of course the real celebration will take place on Jan. 20, 2009!

Today's totally unnecessary story...

...comes to us from ... where else? ... the Herald!

The lede:

"TV news co-anchors Cynthia Demos and Jorge Estevez laugh at each other's jokes, bring each other coffee and launch into deep conversations about diets and dating. They say the bond makes them feel happier about coming to work."

Jorge and Cynthia, it turns out, are "office spouses."

Well, hold the phone and stop the presses!! Co-workers are laughing at each other's jokes? Where in the hell are Woodward and Bernstein when we really need them?

Some of the signs you have an office spouse according to the Herald? "You count each others carbs." Yech!! Way TMI!!!

However, like with so many other Herald stories, it's not what's in the story but rather what's missing. It might have been helpful to know what the real-life spouses of Cynthia and Jorge think of their "office spouses." But adding that tid-bit to the story would have put it dangerously close to journalism which this story is definitely not.