He's Baa-aack

Chris Davis is a writer for the Memphis Flyer; he also does the Fly on the Wall column. We've emailed a time or two and though he's as far left as they come, he's not a bad egg. This fall he took the plunge and started his own blog, The Flypaper Theory. Mostly he was venting the usual anti-Bush spleen. As the Christmas holidays approached, he claimed pressures of work and real life (oh yeah, suuuuure....) and suspended the blog.

Well, he's back and with a bang.

It's no secret that Chris Peck, the CA'stop dog editor has a vision for the paper. He runs press releases createdby the PR departments of various organizations, and he runs them as bylined "special to the Commercial Appeal" stories. On at least one occasion--if memory serves--a colleague pointed out a business-related story written by the subject's mother. Pet pictures have popped up in the new M section. Boondocks has been moved to the Editorial page to appease all the small-minded racists who write letters and complain that the satirical strip is racist.

In previous conversations and e-mail exchanges I've had with the editor he's made it quite clear that he wants to give Memphis a newspaper that looks like Memphis, reflecting the city's values, and chock full of things that the average Memphian is dying to read. And that doesn't sound so bad, now does it? But there's a big problem with the theory.

Making the CAlook more like Memphis really means making Memphians look like they wantto be seen. It’s a funhouse mirror that makes you look 10-pounds lighter and 10-years younger. And that sort of approach is fine for society tabs like RSVP, or the dearly departed Elite Memphis (RIP), but not for the paper of record. In positioning itself as a flatterer and a suck up to institutions by treating unvetted press releases as news, the CA takes on a grating, untrustworthy, and decidedly Eddie Haskell-like smarm.

Much more where this came from. And you know when a loony lefty like Chris (he's so far out he's in the shadow of the "Here There Be Monsters" signs) and a libertarian righty like me agree on something, there must be a nugget of truth. When I first read that the New CA was no longer reporting but now in the business of "telling stories" and "telling the story" of "Greater Memphis," well I didn't need to smell the smoke to know the house was on fire.

Welcome back, Chris.

Radio Rant

So, while I'm blogging late, I have MTV2's Subterranean on the television. Hot damn but I'm hearing some great music -- The Concretes, Secret Machines, Interpol, Mesh, Kings of Leon, The Mieces, Dandelion, The Delays, The Thermals and a ton of bands whose names I can even remember! I think Rachel's Scenestars covers similar ground. Incredible music I really like and would listen to all day long....

IF IT WAS ON THE RADIO!!

Dozens of local stations and no one is playing this music. How much more moribund does this industry have to become before change happens? The supremacy of audience delivery for advertisers has drained the life from music radio. No wonder that the last radio station I listened to regularly was effin' Triple J from AUSTRALIA!

You hear me, Clear Channel? AUSTRALIA!!

I swear, when I finally upgrade to DSL or cable, I am so turning my back on local radio. You guys SUCK! You can all go cash your paychecks at the First National Bank of HELL!!

Vern Estes

Say "Estes Model Rockets" to men of a certain age and the effect is instant and infectious. Boys of the 60s and 70's built their paper and balsa rockets by the millions, launching them into the skies all across America. Uncountable careers in science and engineering were started thanks to model rocketry and at least one astronaut has come from the ranks of model rocketeers!

G. Harry Stine was a White Sands engineer with an interest in the budding amateur rocket movement of the 1950s. He was concerned because young boys were being blinded and maimed trying to build their own pipe rockets. (Think October Sky.) When shoe salesman and amateur chemist Orville Carlisle contacted him, after reading some of Stine's articles on rockets in Popular Mechanics, he told him of some black powder, throw-away rocket motors he'd been designing. Carlisle sent Stine a box of the motors and a couple of the Rock-a-chute rocket kits he'd been experimenting with. The beauty of Carlisle's innovation was that the motors were safe to store, premade and were tossed away after use. You just recovered your rocket, threw out the used motor, put in a fresh one, and launched again! Simple and safe.

Stine contacted some area boys and had them give it a shot. They blew through the whole box of motors in one afternoon, then clamored for more. Stine understood that he'd found his answer and got to work. He and Carlisle started Model Missiles, Inc. to sell Carlisle's kits and motors. Stine promoted them in Popular Mechanics and started to create and promulgate a set of safety rules. (Remember, he was an engineer.) Within a few years, they were selling hundreds of rockets and motors.

Carlisle couldn't keep up with the demand for his black powder engines, so Stine looked around for someone with fireworks experience who could start a factory. He found Vern Estes of Colorado. The rest, of course, is history.

Estes Industries became, and remains to this day, the number one model rocket company in the world. Tens of millions of kids (and now adults, too) have flown their kits. Rockets that Vern designed in the early Sixties are still being sold today: Alpha, Big Bertha, Mosquito. Vern has become a kind of father figure to the hobby, always modest and self-effacing, welcome at launches all around the world. And until age slowed him down (he's around 70 now), he attended a lot of launches, too.

Now comes word that he's seriously begun work on his autobiography and history of the hobby, "Dear Mr. Estes". He started the book about a decade ago, but seems now to really gotten serious about completing and publishing it. I know I'll get a copy.

A few fun rocket links:
Estes Industries: The backbone of the hobby. In comics terms, the DC to Centuri Engineering's Marvel.
National Association of Rocketry: Another of Harry Stine's legacies to the hobby. There has never been a serious injury or death due to model rocketry and the NAR can be thanked for that.
Tripoli Rocketry Asociation: Boys grow up.
Jim Z's: Estes and Centuri may not make them any more, but that doesn't mean you can't build 'em! A real nostalgia trip....
Rocketry Online: Links galore!
Mid-South Rocket Society: The local model rocketry club. Root around in the photos and you might find yours truly in there!

Quiz Time

A fun quiz for your morning (afternoon, evening) surf. Just how much attention do you pay to the ordinary, everyday things in your life. Find out here, with the "Just How Observant Are You?" quiz. Sadly, I only got 20 of 27. Post your score in comments.

The Classic Are Classics For a Reason

One of the tenets of revision of the modern literary canon is that blacks, women, minority-this and minority-that can't "relate" to the thoughts, no matter how penetrating or profound, of dead white European men. After all, what does Shakespeare have to say to the modern condition? Hamlet's alienation and despair mean nothing to today's urban youth. Romeo and Juliet's desperate attempts at love in the midst of family fueding doesn't speak to instant messaging kids. European anti-Semitism? Please....

City Journal, a magazine I'm going to have to pay more attention to, has an excellent article called The Classic in the Slums. Jonathan Rose looks at how well versed in the classics the very poor of 19th and early 20th century England were and what it meant for them. He also clears up some myths and misconceptions that have arisen in recent decades.

Clearly, something more radical needs to be done. Literary studies, I suggest, could be revitalized, and could once again engage the general public, by turning its attention to the ordinary reader in history.

Some groundbreaking scholars have done precisely that. In The Cheese and the Worms (1980), Carlo Ginzburg recovered the story of Menocchio, a miller in sixteenth-century Italy who acquired and read (with a highly independent mind) a vernacular Bible, Boccaccio's Decameron, travel books, perhaps even the Qur'an. In Reading Becomes a Necessity of Life: Material and Cultural Life in Rural New England, 1780-1835 (1989), William Gilmore found Vermont farmers stocking their home libraries with Homer, Virgil, Cicero, Dr. Johnson, Walter Scott, Oliver Goldsmith, Laurence Sterne, and John Locke. In Readers and Society in Nineteenth-Century France: Workers, Women, Peasants (2001), Martyn Lyons discovered workingmen who haunted second-hand bookstalls along the Seine, devouring Châteaubriand, Alexandre Dumas, Goethe, Shakespeare, and the philosophes of the Enlightenment. Elizabeth McHenry's prizewinning Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African-American Literary Societies (2002) unearthed a tradition we scarcely knew existed: black Americans discussing Milton, Spenser, Homer, Aeschylus, Longfellow, Dryden, Pope, Browning, Pindar, and Sappho, as well as Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Impressive networks of workers' libraries were set up not just by Welsh colliers, but also by Colorado miners, the Social Democratic Party in imperial Germany, trade unions in interwar Poland, study circles in Sweden, the Histadrut labor federation in mandatory Palestine, and anarchists in pre-Franco Spain. And in Nilo Cruz's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, Anna in the Tropics, cigar makers listen to the classics read aloud while they work—a Cuban tradition, but also practiced in many other parts of the world. Everywhere we look, in a diversity of cultures and historical periods, we find "common" readers tackling remarkably challenging literature.

A fascinating, eye-opening work.

Blast! Damn You All!

Ahhh, thank you Seth McFarlane and Family Guy. I've been having troubles for months now with not finding much enjoyment out of life. Dysphoria, or whatever it's called. I've tried renting funny movies with disastrous results. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy? Excruciatingly not funny. Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle? It had some moments, but was a disappointment. Napoleon Dynamite? Ick. Funniest movie I've seen recently was a little-known Scottish comedy, Janice Beard 45WPM.

(Although I'll give props to The Incredibles. I was trying to figure out if I could see it again that day, after only twenty minutes. Great movie, but I consider it more an adventure movie than a comedy. I love its decidedly un-PC message. Too bad the sequel is about two years off.)

And then I find out that FOX has brought back Family Guy in anticipation of its return with new episodes starting in May! Two back to back episodes every Sunday this month. Whee! My dysphoria lifted briefly and I was laughing again.

"Remember: Guns don't kill people. Dangerous minorities do." Stewie doing William Shatner doing "Rocketman." The Real Live Griffins. Heck, just a half-hour of Stewie and Brian would keep me in stitches, and word is there's another Stewie/Brian road episode coming up in the new ones!

Yeah, I'm happy again.

Carnival of the Historians

Via Instapundit comes a link to the History Carnival #1. This is a roundup of interesting posts from a variety of history bloggers. With all of civilisation and time to peruse, it's a broad and varied anthology.

The 2020 Report: Duh

So the National Intelligence Council releases it latest look into the world's future and divines the following:

1. China and India will increase in importance. Maybe Indonesia and Brazil, too. Unless something surprising happens.
2. Globalisation will continue and raise all boats. Unless there's an unexpected economic event.
3. No big wars are likely to break out. Unless the unexpected happens.
4. Terrorism will continue.
5. The United States will slip a bit, but remain the world's dominant power. Unless something unexpected happens.

The report, which is supposed to look fifteen years ahead, merely describes the world we know right now. It could have been written by any competent person who follows world events. It's no wonder our intelligence establishment is such crap, if these are the kinds of minds we have at work.

Still, if you feel weak on international issues, this isn't a bad primer.

(Dead) End Game

Idle surfing always turns up the most interesting things. I found this site, which is a point by point takedown of Star Trek: Voyager's final episode: "Endgame." It also manages to address many of the series' other problems in hilarious fashion. The author points up one missed opportunity after another. The site does assume you're very familiar with the episode, so you may want to refresh your memory here.

Remember: Seven of Nine is still a virgin!

Harper vs. Herenton: Rounds Two and Three

It's the story that's been buzzing around some Memphis websites for days now. See my post a bit below this one. After Tuesday's Rotary Club meeting, in which Herenton talked about consolidation and questioned the intelligence of those who opposed it, the Mayor was giving a group stand-up interview to local reporters when WPTY/24's anchor Cameron Harper walked up.

Harper pointed out, and I'm paraphrasing here, that Herenton had talked before about taking the drastic step of surrendering the City's charter to force consolidation with the County. Given that and Herenton's difficult relationship with members of the City Council and other public figures, Harper pressed, which appears to have hampered his efforts, if it would further the goal of consolidation, would he resign as Mayor? Herenton was thown by the question, which Harper pressed some more. Eventually, after some frustrating back and forth, Herenton told Harper that he had gone off on some unrealistic tangent that Herenton didn't want to waste time with. He terminated the interview and tried to walk away.

Here's where it gets sticky. The Mayor claims that Harper put hands on him. Herenton can be heard on WMC's tape threatening to "lay him out." But that tape is focused on Herenton's head and shoulders, so none of Harper's actions can be seen at all. On the WPTY tape shown tonight at 9 and 10PM, you can see a bit more. They broadcast the entire incident unedited. You can see Harper move toward the Mayor, but the left hand in question, and Herenton's right arm, are still out of the frame. Judging by Herenton's movements, it doesn't appear that he was subject to anything more than a hand on his arm. You can't see Herenton jerk, nor does his right shoulder drag as though pulled. What you do see is Herenton stop, standing very still.

Now, in a letter released to all media outlets this afternoon, Herenton has claimed, speaking of Harper:

an observed media employee made physical contact on the Mayor during an interview. After this physical contact, the media employee had to be restrained and prevented from making further unwanted and offensive contact.

While I would be well within my rights as a citizen to file a complaint for assault, it would not be in the best interests of the city to do so at this time based on one incident. However, under no circumstances, will the Office of the Mayor accept the media's behavior in the future that is of a harassing or abusive nature.

Herenton's claims of restraint and offense are wild exaggeration. Calling it "harassing or abusive" fits only in Herenton's imperial mind. He's making a huge, outsized drama of the situation to club the local media and make them back off.

To his great credit, WPTY/24 News Director Jim Turpin immediately fired back with his own official response, where he called Herenton's claims "falsified and invented." Turpin unequivocally stands by his reporter and throws the ball back into Herenton's court. You can read both documents here. Even if Dee Griffin seems to be trying, on camera, to stay out of this, the whole of WPTY and Clear Channel -- and especally JIm Turpin -- are to be commended for not putting up with this nonsense.

Note that the letters are transcribed and there are, as yet, no scans of the actual documents. Hopefully, they or another station will rectify this ommission. It's the Internet Age folks, you really should be putting original source material on the Web as much as possible.

There's a related story on the WMC/5 website. They also have posted their video, which isn't helpful except for catching Herenton's clear threat of violence. Also, you have to have the latest version of Windows Media Player to view it. Same for WPTY's video. Again, come on people, it's the Internet Age. Don't assume viewers have the latest and greatest computers or software; most don't. I sure don't! Offering Quicktime or RealPlayer wouldn't hurt either. Serve your viewers, don't make them work for you.

Read the comments in my post below, and at Peg's blog. (If this is being discussed anywhere else, please leave a link in comments.) You'll see that the media pros are universal in their abuse of Harper, saying that he was out of line and unprofessional. Many seem to feel he did assault the Mayor. I think the tapes make it clear he didn't.

However, Harper was a hog. You'll notice that WPTY's tape starts with Harper already talking to the Mayor. You don't seem him walk up or how he interacted with the press already there. You can also see that he's in front of the rest of the press, alongside Herenton. My suspicion is that Harper barged in, eager for a face-to-face with Herenton.

Cameron Harper is a unique case. Most all of the local anchors still adhere to the bland neutrality of their profession, limiting comment on stories to generic statements of unquestionable universality. Not Cameron. I cannot count the number of times he'll make a comment setting up or coming out of a story that seems personal and pointed. It's like he's bursting to tell you what he thinks. It's like he's trying to FOX-ify things. Especially when it comes to Mayor Herenton, for whom he seems to have a special animus. You can see, reading between the lines, that most local reporters are exasperated by Herenton's media tactics. Harper lets his show.

Last year, WPTY did a "look back" special on the Summerstorm of 2003 (Hurricane Elvis, as most locals call it). One part of the special, done by Cameron, was meant to look at Mayor Herenton's odd behavior in the aftermath of the storm. He is, after all, the Mayor of the City and a figurehead expected to reassure the populace. Herenton was not visible initially and blew off a later visit by Governor Bredesen to attend a fund-raiser in Little Rock held by the firm that was later implicated in the MLGW bond problems. Harper noted that Herenton declined to participate in the program, so he just asked his questions of an empty chair! Zing and point made.

Friday night, Cameron also mentioned that WPTY gave Herenton an open invitation on Tuesday to an unedited half-hour interview program. Herenton declined again, but what politician wouldn't? It was yet another dare on Cameron's part.

And that's what I like about this. Harper is upsetting the local media applecart. The Commercial Appeal has made an art of bending over backwards for Herenton. The television stations just play the usual media game, even though Herenton has been broadcast saying that he'll lie to them and avoid them if he sees fit! Herenton treats them like his bitch and they keep on playing along because that's the "rules." That's "how it's done." It's like watching the King and his Loyal Opposition. The time for this sort of deference is long past.

Harper has upended all that and good for him. As I noted elsewhere, a smart reporter at that scene would have jumped in with more questions on a different topic before the Mayor walked away and while he was still frazzled. Without a doubt, Herenton would have let slip with more interesting comments.

It's time for the local media to up the ante on Herenton. If the media takes seriously their self-professed role of voice of the people then they need to start making Herenton talk. All those ambush interviews they do of nickel-and-dime con artists, banging on doors and interviewing the neighbors, being "on your side," need to be applied to the Mayor until he's responsive and open. Open an I-Team Investigation, for heaven's sake. Bravo to Harper for taking things to that level.

One example: A couple of weeks ago, Mayor Herenton appeared before the City Council. He had been asked to provide a list of salaries in his office, with an eye to explaining any increases. Instead, Herenton threw back in the Council's faces a list of their own staff's pay increases. The media followed. Not one reporter thought to notice that Herenton hadn't answered the question and had managed to change the focus. It took a while for anyone to notice.

I hope that the other stations will follow now that Harper's kicked in the door, but I suspect "journalistic ethics" and "professionalism" will still rule the bland roost. Heck, WREG/3's Mike Matthews seems tailor made for it, even if he's a puffball at heart, where Harper seems made of pointier, more dangerous, stuff. Have at it!

One last point. I think that at least part of the problem in the Harper/Herenton incident is sociocultural. Life in Memphis has taught me many lessons, one of which is: when things get heated, never lay hands on a black man. You can get up in his face, but do not touch him. If you do, it's on. Whites are more the opposite. Don't get in their personal space, but using a hand to stop someone from walking away is not an immediate problem.

Harper seems like a nice guy, but also a very white one. I'm sure he had no clue that what he did, laying a hand on the Mayor, is taboo to black men in a heated situation. You just don't do it. Period. That's why Herenton stiffens up and stops in his tracks. It was a surprise and seemed to offend Herenton. It's why Herenton quickly upped the ante by threatening to lay Harper out. Look at the security guard and Carson; neither one puts hands on Harper much, using their bodies to block the two. I'd bet any money it was an innocent mistake on Harper's part, but in racially charged Memphis that can be explosive nonetheless, doubly so when the Mayor often seems to care more about his black constituents than the white, triply so the whites who oppose him or give him "mess."

It will be interesting to watch how this unfolds. Will Herenton punish WPTY by restricting access or some other minor harrassment? Will he change his media behavior? Will the media distance themselves from WPTY? Will they heap approbations on them? Will they use this opportunity to change their own behavior towards the Mayor? Will they turn up the pressures?

People who want to hear how this plays are encouraged to listen to the talk shows on WDIA (AM1040) for the view from black Memphis. I'm guessing they will laugh at Herenton, but back him. The Andrew Clark show (WMC AM600, Saturday and Sunday from noon to 3PM) will also likely discuss this. I'm hoping Clark can get Cameron on the show, as they are Clear Channel stablemates.

Fun days coming.

MIDNIGHT UPDATE It occurred to me later to ask: was Cameron Harper the only WPTY reporter on the scene or was there a regular reporter there doing the usual Mayoral coverage? In either case, why did Cameron decide to get out from behind the desk and go out on location? Was he planning something? If anyone there can fill me in, I'd like to hear it.

1/16/05 6PM UPDATE Two sources now have it that Mayor Herenton said "I'm going to drop him." I didn't make notes, but I thought I heard the Mayor say "lay him out." My apologies!

The Commercial Appeal, still wedded to a daily cycle for news, has the story today, though it's a bare bones version. Again, the paper allows the reporter to summarise the words of others, rather than letting original sources speak for themselves as WPTY and WMC are doing. They do have some new quotes from the Mayor, but those quotes don't add anything new.

WMC and WPTY both reran their tapes. WPTY's story tonight was a virtual repeat of Friday's WPTY and WLMT presentation, almost to the word, as though the same script was recycled. Nothing on WREG/3's site as of this update, and nothing on the WHBQ/13 5PM newscast. (WHBQ has no web site at the moment.)

No one has posted scans of the Herenton letter nor the WPTY response.

Good discussion of the subject on the Andrew Clark show this afternoon. Listeners might have recognised "Mike from Midtown." Clark, a longtime Herenton fan, is becoming disillusioned at last. He also said he'd try to get Cameron Harper on, to discuss his side of the story. WMC did a "Viewer's Response" segment, but it was the usual artificially balanced thing: two "blames Herenton" vs. two "blames Harper." No idea what the actual ratio of responses was.

It's too soon to expect to see anything in the Commercial Appeal's Sunday edition. Probably, Wendi Thomas will have something on Tuesday. (My prediction: Chastising Harper for not following journalistic practice and being a bad reporter while also chiding the Mayor, but not quite as much. She may work race into it.) I wonder if the Mayor will use the paper to print some kind of scold, disguised as a guest editorial.

1/16/05 7PM UPDATE WMC/5 reporter/blogger Darrell Phillips is weighing in with some thoughts:

There has been some digital debate over whether the rest of the Memphis press corps should be as tenacious as Cameron Harper was this week, as aggressive. While I believe strongly in the "determined" quest for truth (etc. etc.), many of my colleagues and I have learned that each Memphis story must be a cost-benefit analysis. And we proceed accordingly. While the Mayor might (hypothetically) grant an interview about pay raises today, he might not avail himself to me tomorrow. My chances might be lessened by the nature of my questions or the composition of the actual story. So every day/night, we must decide if today's piece is worth tomorrow's access.

Cameron Harper didn't have to worry about that. And that is a luxury that you must plug into this equation. Harper had little to lose by pissing the Mayor off over his line of questioning. Harper is an anchor. And while he "reports" on City politics every day and DOES interview elected officials on occasion, he is simply not tasked with making that daily call to H's spokesperson.

Good points, and I'd agree that Harper likely wasn't thinking past the moment. Phillips has much more, including a link to WMC's audio of the incident, enhanced to make Herenton's comments a bit clearer.

On the other hand, transparency in government is vital, and a good press is necessary to that transparency. When you have a cloak-and-dagger man like Herenton, pressing the issue regardless of cost may be called for. The press will report regardless of cooperation. What's a government official going to do if the press doesn't work with him? Where else can he go to get the message out?

Remember, the guy who owns the camera always gets the last word.

Thought For The Day

If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning. (Catherine Aird)

Reframe Your Thinking

Listening to the radio some today, it seems that the most recent Maureen Dowd column is the topic du jour. She notes a supposed trend, at least in her social circles, of men marrying not their equals or superiors but their subordinates. It's yet another version of "men want to marry their mothers."

But this quote caught my ear enough to search it out:

I'd been noticing a trend along these lines, as famous and powerful men took up with the young women whose job it was to tend to them and care for them in some way: their secretaries, assistants, nannies, caterers, flight attendants, researchers and fact-checkers.

You can tell she just scanned her own mind and experience to compile that list. That list tells you everything you'd want to know about how circumscribed Dowd's world is and that of her imagined readers. Secretaries, assistants, researchers and fact-checkers are everyday parts of her work world. Many of her female friends would naturally have nannies, in that rarified social stratum. Caterers appear at the parties she goes to and the flight attendants serve her drinks as she flies across the country.

Where are the nurses, cashiers, and lower-ranked female middle-managers of the everyday work world you and I know. There are dozens of other examples she could have chosen, but look at how arthritic her thinking is.

Somewhere last year I had an epiphany. Don't think of the New York Times as America's Newspaper, the Paper of Record, the final authority and national arbiter of discussion. Instead, think of it as the local newspaper of Upper West Side New York. Kinda changes things, doesn't it? Granted, they have resources most papers can't approach, but if you realise the audience they are writing for is so small, insular and provincial, then much of their bias and narrow-mindedness becomes understandable.

It's completely revolutionised the place and esteem I hold the paper in. And it squarely places irrelevancies like Dowd into the "Social Happenings"-reporter place her column occupies. She's just a jumped-up society columnist!

I'm glad for hearing about this column of hers. Now I can safely and forever disregard her.

Another Public Service of Half-Bakered

With apologies to Cameron Harper. Feel free to use and abuse this graphic as you wish:



More information about the dust-up, via Peg, here, along with a comment of mine detailing a previous Harper-Herenton jab. Hilarious comments can be read under this post, also at Peg's blog, along with another eye-witness' take. And, as a bonus, an anonymous commenter gets angry at another commenter for anonymity! You can't make this stuff up.

My take? Cameron Harper didn't cross any lines unprovoked. Herenton's disdain for and evasion of the press is legend and has been extensively documented. Herenton's even admitted on tape that he'll lie to the press if it suits him. If the Mayor wants respectful treatment, he should behave respectfully. He's declined so far, so I don't think unusual measures like Harper's are necessarily bad form. Had some of the other reporters on the scene been thinking fast, they might have thrown in a few more questions to the rattled Mayor. No telling what Herenton might have said by accident.

On the other hand, I believe there's a pundit inside of Cameron just dying to get out. Watch regularly and you'll see little comments, opinions and asides pop out of him, especially at the end of segments. Given that the current news-anchor format has a pretense of neutrality and objectivity, that's likely not wise. If he's serious, he should go ahead and clearly stake out positions, so folks know what he believes, like any good pundit or critic. If he's just doing that as an "I'm a regular guy like you viewers" line, pandering to presumed audience biases, then that's doubly unwise, as folks won't buy it. Either way, Dee Griffin needs to know, so she can adapt her own presentation to whatever he's trying to do. As it is, she looks either uncomfortable or like she's deliberately ignoring what he says, which just heightens whatever Cameron has said.

And, for the record, while I support consolidation on a theoretical basis (fewer layers of government, smaller relative size, duplication of services, etc.) I recognise that, barring chicanery, it's not going to happen for another decade or two at least. Race trumps all. Herenton should get serious and present a plan (which after a decade he has yet to do) or just shut the hell up. My guess is that he'll do what he's done since his first election: drop the topic after a while. Old dogs don't learn new tricks....

Why? Because I Love You

I've been discovering dozens of Memphis blogs over the past year, including a whole new crop I found during the most recent blog hiatus. I'll add the new ones to the blog list soon, highlighting a few of the interesting ones. I don't know why, but I thought it might be time to have some kind of Memphis bloggers' team logo or club icon or something. So, I made this:



Please feel free to download this graphic to your own server and use it all you want. If you are on a service that doesn't have image hosting, then (AND ONLY THEN) hot-link it. (URL: http://www.hollihan.net/MemBlog.gif) Don't abuse the generosity or I'll have to stop. Bear in mind that this will cost me some, so if you wanna hit the PayPal button up there to chip in a few bucks, that would be swell, too.

Don't say I never did anything nice, OK?

Welcome Our New Evil Overlords

Laura Bush throws the goat! Metalheads can't figure out whether to rejoice or vomit.

Thought for the Day

Build a man a fire and you keep him warm for a day. Teach a man to make fire and he'll burn down the forest.

Send Lawyers, Guns and Money

Sorry for the cheesy header, but it fits the story, as you'll see.

Daniel Finney is a writer/reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the local daily. Rather, he was; he's had a miserable Christmas season. He's now become the latest poster boy for Internet stupidity. Allow me to tell the tale.

The St. Louis alt-weekly, the Riverfront Times did a short squib a couple of weeks ago (last item; scroll down) about a blog they had found: Rage, Anguish and Bad Craziness in St. Louis. It's since pulled down. You can find a Google-cached page from September here. A search of the Wayback Machine archives turned up nothing. I've saved the page to my hard drive in the event it disappears from Google. You can also have a gander at Finney's Sitemeter info, which is still available. Note his account name: newsmanone.

Seems someone had tipped them to the blog, apparently run by a reporter at the Post-Dispatch who was anonymously spilling all kinds of dirt and bile about himself, his paper and his colleagues. Stuff like this:

News today out of San Francisco, the Chronicle reports that Jason Giambi testified that he, in fact did use steroids between 2001 and 2003.....

I also take steroids. Mine, however, are the new, really good kind. They work in reverse. The more I take, the flabbier my body gets. But my dick is huge. Huge, I tell you. Did I mention huge?

Speaking of dicks, I've been reading the Post-Dispatch's annual 100 Neediest Cases stories. The bottom line is that there are a lot of poor people who need stuff. It is a worthy cause. And, at some level, I feel sorry for these people. But at another level, one in which your friend Crazy Roland is much more in touch with, I must admit that I feel as if a good number of these needy cases could be avoided by a well-placed prophylactic...

Instead of giving these people free stuff, perhaps we ought to be striking the problem where it hurts. We should send the police out across the metro area breaking up bad couplings.

"YOU THERE IN THE RENT-CONTROLLED HOUSING," the officer would shout from his bullhorn. "STEP AWAY FROM THE DICK! THAT'S RIGHT! PUT ... THE ... DICK ... DOWN!

"WE KNOW IT IS FUN. WE KNOW IT IS FREE. BUT THIS WILL DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD.

"WE SEE YOU, THOMPSON. YOU'RE ON YOU'RE FOURTH STRIKE, ASSHOLE. STAY AWAY FROM THE PUSSY. DO NOT EJACULATE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. A NAVY SEAL IN FULL DIVING GEAR WILL PLACE TWO CONDOMS ON YOUR PENIS. DO NOT MAKE ANY SUDDEN MOVES OR HE WILL BE FORCED TO CUT YOUR HEAD OFF WITH A MACHETE. ... WE MEAN, OF COURSE, THE HEAD AT YOUR SHOULDERS YOU SICK S.WINE."

Oh yeah. Days later, a "100 Neediest Cases" story appeared with Daniel Finney's byline.

Of course, a lot of folks saw through the nom de blog -- Roland H. Thompson -- pretty quickly. It seemed a tribute to Warren Zevon's great classic "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner." Hence my bad pun header for this post. You can also note that this name contains references to Roland Hedley, Doonesbury's reporter, and to Hunter Thompson, the gonzo journalist of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The following issue, the Riverfront Times ran a follow-up. The Post-Dispatch had identified the blogger as Finney and suspended him. The Times reported:

Several of Finney's colleagues at the Post-Dispatch provided an account of last week's events, on the condition that their names not appear in print.

They say Finney's hard drive was confiscated on Thursday, December 16, the day after the Unreal item was published, and that he was informed of his suspension shortly thereafter.

A 29-year-old native of Des Moines, Iowa, Finney came to the Post in May 2003 after stints at USA Today, the Des Moines Register and the Omaha World-Herald. For the Post's "Everyday" section, Finney specialized in youth and culture, reviewing books, comics and DVD releases, as well as the occasional feature profile. One colleague says Finney's work received mixed reviews in the newsroom. "The features staff -- the brass -- thought he was swell," the source says. "The young people thought he was an idiot."

Others noticed his eccentric habits, including a desk crowded with action figures.

Yeah, hit a guy when he's down -- the classic journalism sideswipe. I recently worked with a woman whose desk was a virtual shrine to her granddaughter: pictures everywhere, cards, Bible and Hallmark quotes that contained her name, things she'd drawn, etc. It was nothing but grandmotherly love, but it would be easy to make it look really creepy, if you chose. Cheap shot, Riverfront Times.

So, anyway, Finney's story got around. You can read press stories, beginning with this Editor & Publisher account, which is spawning most of the national coverage. Romenesko also has it. A site called PaidContent.org has two good, short bits with some insightful comments here and here. The second article notes that Finney has now resigned, on Christmas Eve no less! Another journalist who has his own blog, M. G. Tinker's Beyond Deadline, has some good thoughts. (The link is bloggered. Scroll down about halfway to "New Rules.")

Now, this is not a case of someone being fired over political principle or sexual preference or anything like that. No, this was a reporter who did a very bad job of hiding his contempt for his coworkers, employer, subjects and himself. He tried to post anonymously and failed miserably. From the little I’ve read of what he had written, I think the paper would have been on very solid legal and moral ground firing his butt.

So now we come to the subject of journalist bloggers who work for companies, particularly “old media” types like my employer. In fact, Mr. Finney is going to cause quite a lot of folks like me to give pause before writing their next blog entry.

In fact, he’s earned a flogging if for no other reason his case will discourage folks who should be trying out this fun new tool from jumping in....

I’m a front-line grunt for the biggest news organization in town. While I’m just a cog in the machine, what I say and do reflects on my employers and colleagues. And whether I like it or not, that extends to my own little slice of the blogsphere on this page as well. In exchange for doing something I like very much for a living, I give up a little personal freedom.

That doesn’t mean I won’t be goofy, contrary, cranky or irreverent. All those are part of my personality and if you’re not going to put some personality into your blog, then just hang it up. However, I won’t cross into certain subject areas, even though I’m dying to jump into the fray.

Perhaps there are some would-be journalist-bloggers out there who are wondering “How do I do this and not get canned?” Better yet, some of them might even be thinking “How do I blog off the clock ethically.”

He goes on to give some good advice. Read the whole thing.

The local daily, the Commercial Appeal, has a stable of in-house bloggers, but only one employee (that I'm aware of) who also blogs personally. Eric is very self-aware and scrupulous about what he says. The alt-weekly, the Memphis Flyer, only has one employee/blogger that I'm aware of: Chris Davis. His blog is explicitly and vehemently political, but he avoids worktalk, generally.

On the television side, it's more unusual. To my knowledge, only one station has any bloggers at all, and they have a veritable bumper crop! At WMC TV-5, the news director, a marquee reporter, and two videographers (Jason and Ted) all regularly blog about work. They are also all responsible and self-aware. For local news junkies, the WMC news crew are an excellent view into the workings of local news operations: critical, open and willing to talk about mistakes. It would be a shame to see this valuable window closed because of the Finney debacle.

In all these cases, the employers are aware of the blogs. And all the bloggers are aware, in turn, of the precariousness of their situation.

The lesson? Be very, very careful if you blog about your workplace, especially if you use your blog to vent. Same for blogging about your industry. Don't count on anonymity, as you can be outed all kinds of ways. There was a Memphis blogger who was reporting all kinds of behind-the-scenes Memphis media stuff, for a while, counting on blog anonymity. A simple error on the site led some folks to figure out who the blogger was. Panic set in and the blog was closed. Haven't heard a peep from that person since.

Even scrupulously maintained anonymity can be breached. Another blogger used to run SouthTV News, a website of information, updates and some gossip about Southern television markets, including Memphis. A couple of months ago, the anonymous blogger learned that a "media ownership group" was trolling around trying to learn his identity. He had no idea why, but supposed it was because he was reporting behind-the-scenes information. In fear for his career, he shut the site down. After consulting an attorney, he brought it back. Then, suddenly, he took it down for good, for another, unspecified, reason. He wasn't doing anything wrong or unethical or ill-advised, but his anonymity was threatened.

(BTW, I'm happy to fill his shoes, at least for the Memphis market. If you have information from behind the walls of Memphis' newspapers or television news operations, please feel free to send it in. I'll run what I can.)

I don't really have much more to add here, except to say that if you're counting on anonymity to protect you from the repercussions of what you write, don't blog. People talk, they share, you'll be found out sooner or later. The general rule of thumb I've always heard is: Never say anything on your blog you'd be afraid to say face-to-face.

One last interesting note: I did a search of Daniel Finney's name on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch site and found no stories on Finney's blog or his supension and subsequent resignation. It's always amusing to me that newspapers -- which demand transparency, accountability and unrestrained access from their subjects -- become closed forts when the spotlight turns on them. Happens nearly every time. The gentleman's agreement that has dominated newspaper self-reporting is finally crumbling in the Internet age, and that's only a good thing.

Once More, I Cannot Stop Myself

Yeah, yeah.... Not blogging yet, yaddayaddayadda.

As is his wont, James Lileks posted an old magazine ad on his blog recently. The smug little twerp just begging to be popped in the kisser resembled a certain Minnesota sourpuss who has been in the news lately. Wheels began turning, grist was milled, bilious mixtures began to bubble in the cauldron of my mind, flocks of birds took sudden flight, children began to cry for no apparent reason. Here's the result:

How Low Will They Go?

No, I'm not back to blogging. It'll be January 1 at the earliest before I even decide on that. But I saw this front page article in Monday's Commercial Appeal and was so stunned and outraged, I had to comment.

How much do you think any business would pay to have the top half of the front page of the daily newspaper? Invaluable, right? Unheard of, right? Apparently not if you're FedEx/Kinko's!

Under the headline Ship a bull's head? 'Yes, we can,' at FedEx Kinko's: United capabilities put new stores' staffs to the test is an article that reads like a feature rewrite of a press release. It is nothing but a long, pointless advertisement for FedEx/Kinko's. It has no news purpose, no news value, no point! It fits into their new "Business is good. Rah rah, sis-boom-bah!" Business section, but transplanted to the front page, the main news page, it's flabbergasting in extremis:

The corner Kinko's was always a can-do kind of place, abuzz with ink cartridges hitting on all cylinders.

Now, as part of FedEx, the FedEx Kinko's Office and Print Center is a multitasker's dream, a place where you can drop off your problems, get them solved and have the solution shipped.

"Our mantra is: 'Yes, we can,'" said Julie Clark, manager of the region's first new FedEx Kinko's at 6641 Poplar.

"There's no other option. We ship packages, and we solve problems."

When a local taxidermist brought a 65-pound bull's head for shipping, new hire Lauren Howell admits she blinked. Then she started looking for a box.

"With these difficult-to-ship items, people think we won't be able to do it or that it will be a big hassle," she said. "It isn't at all. Sure, we have a box to ship your golf clubs. Sure we can wrap a baseball bat."

Besides being loaded with user-friendly technology, including wi-fi and digital image processing, Kinko's gives FedEx a storefront on Main Street.

Is this what Chris Peck's Commercial Appeal is becoming? I'd expect this from a Shopper's News or the North Shelby Times, but the venerable daily newspaper? The paper of record for Memphis and the Greater MidSouth? (Or the Memphis Omnipolitan MegaGeopolis, or whatever they're calling it.)

It's worse than unconscionable. With everything going on in Memphis, Shelby County, the MidSouth, America and the world, this is top-of-the-front-page news? This is what's most important to know on Monday morning? I wonder if any of FedExKinko's competitors will get an equal-footing opportunity like this? Ya think?

A bad paper keeps getting worse. What's next for the front page? Pictures of kittens? Headlines like Not that many dead: It could be worse? "Your ad could be here?" COUPONS?

You think this paper is hitting bottom, then they bust open the secret tomb and new chambers are revealed.... And it'll be years before we get out from under this crap-pile of tapioca.

Never Mind

Whew! Crisis narrowly averted. I let my emotions and enthusiasm carry me away there, as I so often do. I started making promises and commitments I couldn't possibly keep. I was heading down the same old road of disaster once more.

At least it only took me 12 hours to realise my mistake this time.