Journalism
It seems a little dumb to care about such things, but I'd like to see Elizabeth Vargas or another talented female newscaster replace Peter Jennings on World News Tonight. We've ventured far enough into the 21st century to retire the idea that the voice of authority in this country comes in only one octave. ... (read more)Catching Up with the Five of Hearts
I've begun reading How America Lost Iraq, a book by Aaron Glantz, a war correspondent for the liberal Pacifica radio network. Glantz's premise is that the Iraqi people were extremely receptive to the U.S. after Saddam Hussein's overthrow, but their support has been lost because of the imprisonment of innocent people, an inability to restore basic services like water and electricity, and widespread anarchy. The first chapter takes satisfaction in the downfall of Huda Amash, a Saddam loyalist who ... (read more)The defenders of Bush's leaky brain are getting desperate: My only comfort is that probably about 80% or more of the American people don't know who Karl Rove is. And probably 90% or even more don't know who Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame are. Remember, only about 20-25% can name even one Supreme Court [justice]. This was written by Betsy Newmark, an Advanced Placement teacher of U.S. government and politics at a North Carolina high school. How many Americans knew Archibald Cox's name in 1973, ... (read more)The San Francisco Chronicle finds someone who claims to have been an Adidam devotee with Joan Felt: ... they had spent some wild times as devotees of onetime Marin County spiritual sect leader Da Free John, a.k.a. Bubba Free John, a.k.a. Dau Loloma, a.k.a. Da Love-Ananda, a.k.a. Franklin Jones. Hales remembered Joan Felt talking freely about her association with Da Free John, the son of a Long Island window salesman who claimed to be an "incarnation of God" and whose nine wives included a ... (read more)Wikipedia's a Sticky Wicket
The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article on Wikipedia are disputed. The Los Angeles Times gave up its wikitorial experiment after three days. Someone got their goat by adding one of the web's most infamous gross-out photos to the site. Jeff Jarvis defends the honor of wikis, blaming the Times: They didn't get that wikis are a collaborative medium where, even when people disagree, they try to find common ground, knowing there can be only one outcome, or else the wiki will, by its ... (read more)Deep Daughter's Past Illuminated
A front-page story in Sunday's Washington Post examined Deep Throat daughter Joan Felt's association with Adidam: Joan Felt is a devotee of an unusual and controversial self-proclaimed guru who, in two California lawsuits and several public statements 20 years ago, was accused of sexual abuse, slavery, false imprisonment, assault and brainwashing that was said to include persuading people to give him all their money. Asked about the guru today, Joan Felt says, "None of this has anything to do ... (read more)When Reporters Attack
Washington Post reporter Mark Leibovich covers a raucous press conference with Sens. Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, and DNC Chair Howard Dean: The press chorus then devolved into a cacophony of competing screams. (And Dean knows screams!) After several seconds, a booming voice cut through the noise. It belonged to Brian Wilson, a Fox News correspondent who was standing in the middle of the crowd. He asked Dean "if people are focused on the other things that you've said about hating Republicans, about ... (read more)Looking Deeper into Joan Felt
The press has encamped itself outside the Santa Rosa, Calif., home where Mark Felt lives with his daughter Joan, waiting for the next move from Family Deep Throat. Joan Felt, who has said she'd like to "pay some bills" from their notoriety, is described in today's Washington Post as a Sonoma State University Spanish lecturer and former Fulbright scholar. Reporters have yet to discover her association with a spiritual group called Adidam, brought to light by members of an online discussion group ... (read more)I bought a text ad on Google yesterday for the search term Mark Felt, wondering how many people would hit the search engine for more information on the deep-throated stool pigeon: Chasing Mark Felt How a 19-Year-Old College Student Unmasked Watergate Source in 1999 cadenhead.org/workbench The result: 525 clicks on 14,260 impressions, which cost me $26.22 (5 cents per click). Though at first my ad had no competition, by the end of the day, it was joined by ads from NPR, Kentucky Fried Cruelty, ... (read more)Deep Throat Old News to Student
Now that Mark Felt has owned up to being Nixon nemesis Deep Throat, I hope the media tracks down Chase Culeman-Beckman. As recounted in Slate, Culeman-Beckman made news six years ago by claiming that he learned Deep Throat's identity 10 years earlier at summer camp. The 19-year-old college student broke one of the biggest news stories of the 20th century in a paper for his school, which Slate quotes: I was in the "Herons" group along with about fifteen other 8, 9, and 10 year olds ... One ... (read more)
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This blog has been published since Nov. 7, 1999 (a span of 9,375 days).
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