The art of making up quotes
The Daily Mail, above, quotes me in its article today, "Sun, sand, sex and stupidity: Why thousands of middle-aged women are obsessed with holiday gigolos." Or more accurately, my name is used as a prop for the reporter to warn and scold women about chasing younger guys on foreign beaches.Does anyone remember when journalistic charlatan Jayson Blaire wrote an article about Jessica Lynch, the soldier rescued in Iraq? He pretended to go to her home in West Virginia and described a view of "tobacco fields and cattle pastures" from the family porch.
He'd never been to Lynch's home, and it had no view of any such thing.
The fascinating detail that came to light after his fantasy article was published was this: No one complained to his editors at the New York Times! They just assumed journalists make everything up.
I'm reminded of this as I ponder whether to contact an editor at the Daily Mail regarding an interview their reporter, Diana Appleyard, conducted with me three weeks ago, the results of which appeared today.
Or actually, some parallel interview appeared with another "Jeannette Belliveau" who wrote a book identically titled to my own "Romance on the Road." She doesn't live where I live, she wasn't divorced when I was divorced, she doesn't speak or think like I do, but there she is, right in print!
I'm more bemused than bothered and am just intrigued with this whole notion of making up stuff they have in the U.K. tabloids. Maybe I'm just vain, or as a long-time copy editor, sort of in love with the idea that words have precise meanings that don't survive radical alteration and accuracy is worth pursuing.
My first clue that our interview was published today was when I came down this morning to an e-mail box full of requests for interviews with other members of the UK press.
That is the Faustian pact involved with publicity: As long as they spell your name and book title correctly, there's no such thing as bad publicity, right? Especially as I watch "Romance on the Road" zoom up the sales rankings at Amazon.co.uk, and realize there are two sides to this devil's bargain.
Still, I am still innocent enough to be somewhat amazed by the lip service UK journalists pay to pretending to interview the subject of an article. This is apparently done tactically to avoid having to admit to the world that no, they never even contacted the person quoted. At least when they call, they can pretend their madeup quotes are some sort of misunderstanding.
Anyway, here's a blow-by-blow of what I told Diana in our interview, and how it came out in the article.
It was fun to hear from Diana. I mentioned at the start of our interview, fittingly conducted on April Fool's Day, how pivotal Daily Mail articles on female sex travelers were to compiling 
Romance on the Road.
By way of intro, I told Diana, "I'm not really a sex tourist at all. I think of myself more as a world traveler who was open to intimate encounters during my travels. Because few women are willing to publicly disclose such affairs, I tend to serve as a proxy for actual sex tourists in interviews with the BBC and other media."
This came out as:
"Writer Jeannette Belliveau, a self-confessed former 'sex tourist' " ...
OK, let's start maybe color coding the errors. I will put errors in red, and accurate material in blue, and we will see how this sorts out. One more time:
Writer Jeannette Belliveau, a self-confessed former 'sex tourist' " ...After my name, things fall apart a little bit, with two major errors in five words: I'm not really a sex tourist, now or formerly, and the opposite of a self-confessed one.
Next I am quoted as saying "the problem is becoming endemic and that these women are deluding themselves about the dangers such flings present."
I never simply describe sex tourism, either in this interview or others or my writing, as a "problem," it is more of a natural human response to loneliness and the ability of travel to bring farflung men and women together.
Nor do I call it "endemic." It is worldwide and ubiquitous, found in all the world's resorts and even non-resorts, such as the Nepalese Himalayas. "Endemic" is a loaded word that suggests a disease, one I would not use for sex travel by women.
Nor did I say women are deluding themselves about the dangers of such flings. I said the media focused on supposed exploitation of poor men, rather than genuine risks to health and safety.
What I really told Diana: "Critics tend to focus obsessively on fears of exploitation of the men of the Caribbean by wealthier tourists, and they ignore the real potential risks, which are rape, murder and HIV or AIDS."
This came out as:
"The ultimate risk is death," she says, bluntly. "In the past two years three Western women have been killed for their money by their foreign 'toy boys'."The first phrase, "the ultimate risk is death," is accurate. The sentence that follows, "In the past two years, three Western women have been killed for their money by their foreign 'toy boys'," is pure fantasy. What I told her was the Experiences chapter of "Romance on the Road" describes four apparent murders, and these occurred from 1975 through 2000, and NONE involved MONEY!
Further, the expression "foreign toy boys" has never once crossed my lips. Nor has the more semantically accurate "boy toys."
At this point, this article is really losing me with its ratio of fiction to fact.
Next we have these passages:
Statistically, a third of all cross-cultural "marriages" end in divorce, and Jeannette says the naivety of the women involved is unbelievable. "Most of them are middle class and intelligent, which makes their behaviour even more baffling," she says. "These guys are after their money, pure and simple, and the ultimate goal is marriage so they can get a visa and move to the UK. The fact that they can fall for lines such as 'You are so gorgeous' is ridiculous."I cannot even speculate how Diana came to put those words in my mouth. Here I am fairly convinced that she may have misattributed a chunk of text where perhaps she meant to quote Jacqueline Sanchez-Taylor, or someone else she interviewed?
We discussed the fact that she planned to interview Sanchez-Taylor, who has been very helpful to me in my research, but who tends to look at the phenomenon of women's sex travel in a far more negative light than I do.
The entire point of my book, "Romance on the Road," is to look at the entire spectrum of Western women who travel to meet foreign men, and a major premise is that sincere love comes out of some proportion of these seemingly random holiday encounters.
Next we have:
Fifty-three-year-old Jeannette, from Surrey, divorced in her early 30s.I am not from Surrey. I am from Maryland in the United States. I lived in Surrey from 1981-85. I've been back in my home state, and nowhere near Surrey, for 22 years, since 1985.
I divorced when I was 27 years old, not my early 30s. How did the authoress pick "early 30s," I wonder?
Why not just write, "She was abducted by an alien spaceship when she was 47 and had sex with younger, repeat younger, darkskinned, repeat darkskinned, Romulans under the triple moons of Alpha Centauri, prior to joining the middle class and renouncing such plebian activities with a brisk, 'Wise up!'"
It's interesting, it's random, why not?
Next sentence:
A few years later, despairing of the lack of dates in the UK, she began to travel the world and had numerous sexual encounters with young, foreign men.A few years later? No. My first encounter with foreign men was when I was 27, and I was separated at the time. Here are the opening words of my chapter on my experiences in Greece:
"At the age of 27, I made the first of three visits to Greece."
I guess Diana did not quite make it to page 16 of the pdf I e-mailed her of "Romance on the Road!"
"A lack of dates in the UK." No. I also make it clear in that chapter that I had a boyfriend in England at the time of my Greece trip. My estranged husband made some attempts to reconcile, and in addition to the boyfriend, other men made clear their interest in little flirtatious visits to my office and my home.
"Numerous" sexual encounters. More like "some" or "a few."
"Young" foreign men. I think a fair number of them were my age or older.
Next, note a completely accurate paragraph (pops open champagne!) followed by a more shaky one:
"In countries such as the Gambia and Kenya, there is both a surplus of men and the fact that women there tend to marry men at least ten years older than themselves, which is the culture. So for 18-year-old and 20-plus men, there is no one to date.I would not describe poverty in the Gambia as "rife," I tend to speak very precisely on poverty, which I devoted a chapter to in my first book, "An Amateur's Guide to the Planet," and note in "Romance on the Road" that the Gambia is wealthier than nearby countries, quite possibly due to female tourists providing capital to start local businesses."Poverty is rife. Then, over the past ten years, planeloads of mature single British women have started arriving, their handbags full of cash. They're fit, good-looking men and it didn't take them long to realise that there are rich pickings here."
The "10 years of mature British women" reference is made up ... I note in "Romance on the Road" that Scandinavian women began arriving in the Gambia in the late 1960s, and that is not British women, and more like 40 years ago.
"Handbags full of cash" is an utter fabrication out of Diana's imagination.
I would be highly unlikely to describe Gambian men as "fit," they are strong and buff, not "fit" as in yuppies who go to a gym.
"Rich pickings" is a phrase that has never passed my lips. I might well say that a woman can take her pick on the beach, that is certainly a fact.
Reading on:
Sex tourism by British women is not a new phenomenon. As far back as the 1890s, [As Romance on the Road notes, more like the 1840s,] there are recorded incidents of single British women becoming involved with dark-skinned Italian and French men ["dark-skinned" Italian and French men? BWA HA HA HA!] on their cultural 'tours' of Europe. [I write much more of the early travelers to Syria and Tunisia and Egypt, not France!]This is a mangling of the research in "Romance on the Road," which describes numerous instances of India's rajas and nawabs becoming smitten with Englishwomen, often maids. Diana has some sort of obsession with older women with younger men, that she overlays onto the dynamic of India, where age differences had zilch to do with intercultural romances.During the British Raj, it was not unknown for English matrons to fall prey to the darkeyed charms of young Indian men.
But in the past two decades, the phenomenon has escalated. Author Jeannette says that since the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of western women have had affairs with much younger foreign men.See earlier point about Diana's obsession with age differences. My estimates are that 600,000 Western women have engaged in travel sex (not just with younger men) from 1980 (not "since the 1990s) to 2005.
"These are respectable middleclass women ...The phrase "respectable middleclass women" has never passed my lips. Good lord, have I morphed into Miss Jean Brodie? The hectoring Scottish schoolmarm played by Maggie Smith?
"Not all of them are unwitting victims to these sexual conmen," she says. "On top of the fact this quote is made up, I have no idea what point is being made here.
"I have spoken to many women who fly to the Gambia or Jamaica specifically for the purpose of recreational sex."Never said this, I haven't spoken to more than a few women who happened to have sexual experiences in the Gambia and the French Caribbean, and in these cases, romance and tenderness and even marriage were part of these women's stories. Here's a giant chunk of made-up quotes:
Jeannette agrees. "Wise up," she says.The phrase "wise up" has never passed my lips.
"At the very least you will be fleeced out of hundreds, maybe thousands of pounds.Not only did I never say this, who in their right mind would claim traveling women automatically lose thousands of pounds to conmen every time they have a casual shag? The reference to "pounds" rather than "money" is another giveaway that this is a madeup quote attributed to an American who doesn't automatically talk about pounds sterling.
"Kenya and Africa generally, Aids is endemic and you are putting yourself at serious risk."This sentence is remotely similar to what i actually said, which is that Kenya has the highest HIV rate of any country known for visits by women seeking sex tourism.
"Some of these guys are so poor they have nothing to lose, and they may turn violent. if you go off alone with them and change your mind, they may well rape you anyway."Oh Lord up in Heaven!! This sentence is complete fantasy or perhaps delusion. This is what I actually told Diana:
"I note in my Ethics and Etiquette chapter that it's important to be careful in going off alone with your guide, which is close to an automatic presumption that sex is likely to occur. So you either should not go off alone together or be prepared to fight him off if you don't want an advance."
"I know i have been guilty of sex tourism in the past, but there is no way i would take those risks now, knowing what i know."The sentence above is just insane. "Guilty of sex tourism"? Those words have never crossed my lips.
This is a colossal mangling of what I told Diana, where she takes remarks not by me, but from A WOMAN I INTERVIEWED, mangles them, and attributes them to me directly. What I said:
"I interviewed a woman for my Africa chapter who had traveled in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s and enjoyed sexual encounters with men there, who said she would not recommend anyone engage in this behavior today, it's just too risky."
Well, finally, many minutes later, I am at the end of this article ... no more misquotes.
I'll polish this up and send a link to a Daily Mail editor and see what happens, as sort of a lab experiment to see if the folks in West Virginia were correct to not waste their time with contacting editors about fabrications.
Here's the oddest oddity: Yesterday Diana asked me for some women to talk to about their experiences.
I replied:
Hi Diana, Possibly Fiona Pitt-Kethley, the poet who now lives in Spain ... google her you might find her details for contact, or the Guardian might have them, I believe she writes for them intermittently.Someone in the wee few hours between midday Monday U.K. time, when I was contacted, and Diana's Monday night deadline, we have full-blown profiles of two women, "Sarah Jarvis" and "Nicky Jardine," who ostensibly had affairs in Turkey and Egypt respectively.I have a contact in Germany who is willing to discuss these things with the media. (You'll find that usually media have to find women not in their home country to interview ... due to the delicate nature of the story ...)
There are some women quoted in an article in Woman magazine, see link here:
http://www.beaumonde.net/pdfs/womanmag.pdf
Assuming they aren't made up, the author might share the names with you! she was I believe Anna Kingsley: annakingsley@hotmail.com
Juliane Stokes in Nottingham is writing a dissertation on female sex tourism, you could see if she ever found anyone, I know she found it an uphill battle:
jstokes085@aol.com
Yvonne wrote an article in Eve magazine, you can try her too:
yvonne.illsley@btconnect.com
good luck -- Jeannette
And both read straight out of a romance novel.
So far, a good number of Diana's UK colleagues are hot on the heels of "Sarah Jarvis" and "Nicky Jardin" and asking me (not sure why) how to get in touch with them. Since their names have been changed, this will not be easy!
I have a feeling the closest they will get is in the pages of Diana Appleyard's romance novels, "Too Beautiful to Dance," "Playing with Fire," "Out of Love" and "Every Good Woman Deserves a Lover."
They act fictionally and implausibly.
This would just be more humorous examples of Tom Stoppard's adage that there should be a journalist doll -- "Wind it up and it gets it wrong" -- except that I try to operate in the world of responsible, factual journalism.
And I relied on the Daily Mail for some of my anecdotes in "Romance on the Road." And now, frankly, they are suspect, and I may have to drum my fingers and think about revising them out of the picture.
P.S. -- Want to read a 100 percent accurate interview with me on female sex tourism? Try Emily McCoombs "Ticket to Ride" that appeared in Bust magazine, link here.
March 21, 2008
Stuff White People Like: The Wire
"The Wire" creator and executive producer David Simon with Andre Royo, who plays the character Bubbles.
This is just too classic, from the blog Stuff White People Like: Entry No. 85 is "The Wire," our homegrown, just-completed crime drama produced by former Sun colleague David Simon:
Though white people have a natural aversion to television, there are some exceptions. For white people to like a TV show it helps if it is: critically acclaimed, low-rated, shown on premium cable, and available as a DVD box set.For more hilarity, visit the entire site, Stuff White People Like.The latter is important so that white people can order it from Netflix and tell their friends “they are really into
and I watched ten episodes in a row in the weekend. I’m almost caught up.” If you attempt to talk about an episode they have not seen yet, they will scream and cover their ears. In white culture, giving away information about a film or TV series is considered as rude as spitting on your mothers grave. It is an unforgivable offense.
Recent series that have fallen into this category include The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and most recently The Wire.
For the past three years, whenever you say “The Wire” white people are required to respond by saying “it’s the best show on television.” Try it the next time you see a white person! Though now they might say “it WAS the best show on television.”
Here's another great line, true in my experience discussing "The WIre" with people from anywhere from D.C. to Alaska:
If you need to impress a white person, tell them you are from Baltimore. They will immediately ask you about The Wire and how accurate it is. You should confirm that it is “like a documentary of the streets,” the white person will then slowly shake their head and say “man” or “wow.” You will be seen in an entirely new light.I've been meaning to round up some of the kazillions of links looking at "The Wire" and David Simon, focusing mainly on how he trashes the Sun in the final season, the fifth, just concluded.
I was surprised at how harsh Simon was toward his previous employer. Without the Sun, Simon doesn't become a Baltimore cops reporter and meet the homicide detectives that led to his first book, his first network series, and ultimately to his second series with HBO.
Also, I think all workplaces are a Faustian pact for a writer (or artist), caught by definition between wanting to write or create what you want and having to deal with inpenetrable bosses in exchange for this little thing called money.
At lunch with another former Sun colleague, we laughed away at the spectacle of seeing people we worked with -- Bill Zorzi, Laura Lippman, Jeff Price, David Ettlin, Steve Luxenberg and many other real former staffers -- on screen. My lunch buddy made a great point asking why Simon attacks former Sun editors John Carroll and Bill Marimow by proxy, when their predecessor, editor Jim Houck, was truly clueless in our eyes, as seen by a post-Sun career that sent him into invisibility, as Carroll and Marimow continued to do high-level news editing post-Sun.
Here's a second friend from the Sun making a similar point:
I didn't know Simon but remember him storming around the newsroom like a panther. He was an early believer in his own legend. Of course James Houck was the managing editor then. What an empty suit. Why isn't he one of the named evils in the series?In fairness to David, Carroll apparently (after I left to go to the Washington Post) coddled a reporter named Jim Haner, who may have made up stuff for his stories, but not to the extent "The Wire" character Scott Templeton did.At least Carroll and Marimow had significant careers before and after. What ever became of Houck? He vanished. ...
Everybody was unhappy in those days -- 1986 and 87 -- and I gather nothing ever really changed. It was rather depressing, now that I remember those times. In retrospect I entered the newspaper industry at arguably its high-water mark, when financially, editorially, and institutionally, it was the best it ever was going to be. From then on things ran downhill, not just at the Sun, but everywhere.
My friend quoted above may think that '86 and '87 just before things ran downhill. Maybe ... the timing point is interesting, and it seems also though that a whole lot of talent -- including gifted editor Steve Luxenberg, who decamped reluctantly to the Washington Post to make his mark there -- was still going strong at the Sun.
My memories of David Simon at the Baltimore Sun:
My first week at the Sun was in January 1987. David wrote a series on Little Melvin, the Baltimore drug kingpin. As I recall, it ran for five days including over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and Baltimore's black community was riled over feeling slighted by the series' timing. I heard some very quiet grumbling on the copy desk that someone on Metro should have been aware of this clash and worked around it. I think the copy editors were embarrassed too at their more minor role in the oversight.
Later, I had to copy edit a story by David glorifying some criminal or other, that was supposed to run on a Monday. I think everyone else on the copy desk had steered around the story because they didn't want to deal with it.
I spent Sunday unable to get in touch with him or his editor on the fact that the wording in the intro was attempting, I thought unsuccessfully, to give the criminal's stream of consciousness on how he justified his outlaw behavior, but it made it seem as if the reporter's own voice was endorsing the behavior. I added with my boss's permission and as artfully as possible, a brief qualifier that the thought process belonged to subject of the portrait. David showed up Monday to ream me out, standing over me as I sat at my desk. It was an unnerving experience. I explained the point of view had a problem and we couldn't reach him or his editor and that was pretty much that. He seemed fascinated with the underworld and seemed quite determined not to be bourgeois in judging it.
Years later, David's first book, "Homicide," was accepted for publication. I wanted to write and have publish a book idea on my travels, which later became 
An Amateur's Guide to the Planet
When we run into each other, at funerals for example, I am always glad to see David.
Oh I remember one other encounter ... right after I arrived at the Sun, he came up and said, "You used to be a reporter at the Montgomery Journal, and you interviewed me when I was in high school," at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High. I thought didn't recall the meeting but thought that was sweet, and you will see in the Mark Bowden profile below the extent to which David really, really knew and wanted to be a journalist, and found meeting me -- the schools reporter at the local county paper -- something to file away in the memory banks.
He's one of the Sun's noted alumni from a time of great talent at the paper, which also included Lippman and Stephen Hunter, whom I blogged about here.
David Simon with Michael K. Williams, who plays Omar, "The Wire's" most compelling character. Here Williams' discusses his shock at what happened to him on the show.
Anyway, here are links galore for anyone wanting to follow the debate that exploded in the East Coast media.
'The Wire' loses spark in newsroom storyline. From Sun TV critic David Zurawik:
... the newsroom scenes are the Achilles' heel of Season 5 - with mainstream entertainment sacrificed to journalistic shop talk, while fact and fiction are mashed up in the confusing manner of docudrama.Simon's own response to Zurawik's article:
The story is fictional, but it is rooted in concerns about out-of-town chain ownership, wholesale cutbacks in the newsroom, the declining scope of coverage and the continued influence of the prize culture in newspapering, up to and including the temptation among less ethical practitioners to hype or manufacture the news.Here's The Angriest Man in Television by Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, in The Atlantic:That's a lot for any newspaper to endure and The Sun has been very tolerant. And while the Chicago folks ordering up buyout after buyout might want to pause for reflection, Editor In Chief Tim Franklin is right: The people on the ground in Baltimore, though there are less of them, are doing the most to produce the best newspaper they can. He and his staff have nothing of which to be ashamed in that regard, nor was it our intent to in any way shame them. We believe in the themes we have pursued and we believe these problems plague The Sun as all other major papers, some currently, and some under previous regimes. But none of that takes away from the work still being done in Baltimore.
For all his success and accomplishment, he’s an angry man, driven in part by lovingly nurtured grudges against those he feels have slighted him, underestimated him, or betrayed some public trust. High on this list is his old employer The Baltimore Sun—or more precisely, the editors and corporate owners who have (in his view) spent the past two decades eviscerating a great American newspaper. In a better world—one where papers still had owners and editors who were smart, socially committed, honest, and brave—Simon probably would never have left The Sun to pursue a Hollywood career. His father, a frustrated newsman, took him to see Ben Hecht’s and Charles MacArthur’s classic newspaper farce, The Front Page, when he was a boy in Washington, D.C., and Simon was smitten. He landed a job as a Sun reporter just out of the University of Maryland in the early 1980s, and as he tells it, if the newspaper, the industry, and America had lived up to his expectations, he would probably still be documenting the underside of his adopted city one byline at a time. But The Sun let David Simon down. So he has done something that many reporters only dream about. He has created his own Baltimore.From The New York Observer: Whose Bastard Sun: If The Wire Is Wrong, Why Is Baltimore's Paper So Bad?
The Sun that I covered for Baltimore's City Paper in the '90s was the Sun of Mr. Carroll and Mr. Marimow. It was redesigned and ambitious and on its way to Pulitzer glory. It was also a damaged and declining newspaper.'The Wire' finale is a cop-out for a once-great show: More from Zurawik:How can both those things be true? It comes down to a disagreement about the purpose of a newspaper. Mr. Carroll and Mr. Marimow's Sun was a place for young, talented reporters to do ambitious stories. It was not particularly dedicated to covering the news in the city of Baltimore.
That's because the Sun of the '90s was not a Baltimore newspaper. It was a colonial holding of The Los Angeles Times, which had bought it in 1986. Actually, The Times had bought two papers, The Sun and The Evening Sun—in a sense, it had even acquired a share of a third, as the Sunpapers absorbed staff and features from the collapse of the Baltimore News American. But by 1995, The Evening Sun had been folded into The Sun, and Baltimore was down to one daily-paper newsroom. Buyouts, ordered from the other side of the country, were clearing out the veteran employees.
In my preview of the season, I termed the newsroom scenes the "Achilles heel" of the series. Worse, they became a cancer that grew deeper and deeper into other parts of the drama as the season wore on.The problems began with the depiction of a newsroom that lacked any sense of the urgent new-media priorities in the real ones today. Worse, from an entertainment standpoint, it was filled with stick figures and former journalists who couldn't act a lick.
And this is in such stark contrast to the series' richly nuanced treatment of larger-than-life gangsters, played by superb actors. Watching the gears turn inside the mind of Jamie Hector's Marlo Stanfield was one of the great pleasures of the series.
The arch-villains - editor James C. Whiting III (Sam Freed), managing editor Thomas Klebanow (David Costabile) and reporter Scott Templeton (Tom McCarthy) - behave more and more reprehensibly in the finale without viewers getting any sense of their moral reasoning. Whiting and Klebanow go on to commit unpardonable journalistic crimes.
Given the way Simon has identified them in interviews as having been inspired by two real-life newsroom executives who once worked at The Sun, former editor John Carroll and former managing editor Bill Marimow, the term character assassination does not seem too harsh for what he has attempted to do in Season 5 of The Wire. Embracing the controversial genre of docudrama like never before, Simon has repeatedly blurred fact and fiction this year. Take just the matter of chronology. Simon left the Sun in 1995, and the people on whom he bases his villains are long gone, yet he presents events set in the newsroom as if they are taking place at The Sun today.
Is it any wonder that so little truth has emerged from such a stew?
- posted by jbelliveau at 10:31 AM in The Neighborhood
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March 7, 2008
How Americans view the world
Click on the image to see it at full size.This tickles me as someone who wrote an entire book about what Americans could learn from foreign countries.
I laughed out loud at the depiction of Alaska and Hawaii, the thrill of "More America!!" in two great vacation spots.
One of the better jokes is the complete absence of Africa, which I touched on in my first book, An Amateur's Guide to the Planet
The chapter was subtitled "Our Love-Hate Relationship with Africa," and a subtext was "our hefty ignorance about Africa," born of the tiny trickle of American tourism there.
Hat tip to my friend Blaire for sending me this image.
March 1, 2008
Bloggers tackle the Supreme Court and the Exxon oil spill
Three quick updates as bloggers attempt to wrestle with Wednesday's Supreme Court gathering to hear oral arguments in the punitive damages phase of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.Long and fascinating, here is Jan Crawford Greenburg of ABC News in Washington, D.C., Oil and Water:
The most fascinating thing about the argument—and it really was one of the most fascinating arguments of the term--was watching the justices explore different proposals and options to put some limits on punitive damages.I tried to capture a bit of this in my own story for the Cordova Times, here -- how it did seem even to my uninformed eyes that this was a rockin' day at the court, and that Ginsburg ruled the day.You saw Justice Scalia—who has long refused to put constitutional limits on punitive damages (he doesn't see it in the Constitution any more than he sees a right to abortion in the Constitution)—free to weigh in and discuss a framework.
You saw Chief Justice Roberts, who has not ruled squarely on that broader constitutional issue, expressing skepticism about punitive damages and exploring the differences in maritime law—an area he knows well, having argued (and won) the important maritime case, Grubart v Great Lakes Dredge and Dock, which came about after the great Chicago flood. That case, written by Justice Souter, is one of his favorites—as a lawyer he quoted it frequently as an advocate, because it squarely rejected confusing multi-factor tests for admiralty jurisdiction.You saw Ginsburg—who always is prepared at argument, but yesterday exhibited an almost astoundingly expert level of knowledge about this tortured and complex case—pressing Dellinger on the record, on precedent and on federal procedural rules. It was an extraordinarily impressive display, and to many observers she clearly got the best of the argument.
At Scotusblog, former Baltimore Sun courts reporter Lyle Denniston weighs in with Commentary: Exxon may both lose and win.
First impressions, based on what was said or intimated at a fast-paced oral argument, can be quite misleading. This Court usually divides quite deeply in considering punitive damages claims — a factor that is even more complex in this case, because one Justice (Samuel A. Alito, Jr.) is not taking part, leaving at least a chance of a 4-4 split, perhaps on some but not all issues. But first impressions also might qualify as reasonable reactions, when what was asked and answered is parsed closely, and when atmospherics are taken into account. It was apparent that Exxon’s lawyer, Washington attorney Walter Dellinger, was under serious challenge throughout his argument, and critically so on his efforts to get the Court to forbid any punitive damages award for this kind of maritime accident. But it was equally apparent that the lawyer for the individuals and businesses who were awarded punitive damages, Stanford professor and lawyer Jeffrey L. Fisher, had to deal with a spreading view on the bench that there had to be some curbs on punitive damages in the maritime context — especially when the punitive verdict runs into the billions.And finally, here's a podcast from the Federalist Society for Law and Public Studies, direct link here. This gives a more skeptical view of the plaintiffs' arguments for those seeking a balance of information.
- posted by jbelliveau at 12:16 PM in Alaska
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February 29, 2008
My rookie try at covering the Supreme Court
I run into Robert Dillon, with whom I worked briefly in Anchorage in 2004, on the Mall in Washington. Dillon was covering the Supreme Court for the Fairbanks News-Miner, me for the Cordova Times. We both worked earlier for Alaska Newspapers, me as a designer, he as the editor of the Tundra Drums.It's certainly a jolt to go from being in a home office in Baltimore to joining the press corps at the Supreme Court.
I usually spend my weekends copyediting six rural newspapers in Alaska. The dress code for this job is relaxed, at best. I interpret it to allow me to wear, as a sampling at the low end, a paint-splattered University of Maryland sweatshirt, grey Lee jeans and Timberlands with caulk on them.
With any luck, I remember to wear a bandana while doing home improvement projects sandwiched around the editing, so maybe my hair isn't paint splattered as well ... maybe not.
I fit in fairly well with our idiosyncratic Upper Fells Point neighborhood with its mix of arty types, immigrants, blue-collar workers and casually dressed professionals.
Not so well in go-go, busy, hyperaffluent Washington, D.C., the 21st century's answer to the glory of Rome at its height.
So when the Cordova, Alaska, editor of the Cordova Times, Joy Landaluce, suggested I cover the Supreme Court hearing on the Exxon Valdez oil spill on Wednesday and file a story, a major cleanup was in order before I could be presented to the public.
Help came from many quarters. My neighbor Blaire cleaned her Wal-Mart briefcase of cat hair and lent it to me for my notebook, wallet, pens and camera.
She suggested buying black tights at Walgreens -- warmer than stockings, she said -- and wearing some light makeup. While at Walgreens, I also grabbed a box of L'Oreal hair color to address my roots.
My sister Maureen sold me and shipped to Baltimore her wonderful Canon G2 Powershot to take pictures of many Alaska events surrounding the Supreme Court hearing.
My boss in Alaska, editor Randall Howell, and administrative editor Tammy Judd sent a request for press credentials to the nice staff at the Supreme Court information office.
The Supreme Court deputy information officer approved my request and noted a dress code: business jacket mandatory even for female Scotus reporters. And nothing but pens and a notebook would be allowed into the actual courtroom.
I had never owned a business suit in my life. Mindful of my laughable hourly rate working for Alaska Newspapers, I drove to Value Village in Highlandtown and perused the racks of various blue pinstripe numbers. I found a lovely brown suit for $9.98, a new belt for 99 cents and a Liz Claiborne black blouse for $2.98.
To quote the president, mission accomplished.
My sister Sharon and her husband Rob offered lodging a few Metro stops from the court. Rob lent me his aging but servicable Toshiba laptop and Sharon lent her cell phone.
It become obvious that not only did I need a wardrobe for this event, but that I lagged technology by not even having a cell phone, laptop or a professional-grade digital camera. My home office is fairly up to date but I didn't have what I needed to cover a major story without family support, for which I am eternally grateful.
Lamont watched the pets and bought the car down for my use after the court hearing.
And, a family friend, Lee Arnold, counsel to a Republican member of the House of Representatives, who is a fine legal mind, checked my stories for errors, and Eric Caplan of Caplan Communications, publicist for the Cordova-based activists, snared me a career-saving cubicle at the National Press Club to work at on deadline for my preview story the night before the court arguments.
So, all spiffed up, I got the court Wednesday morning about 90 minutes early, and met the Alaskans who were thawing out in the hallway after spending a frigid night outdoors in sleeping bags.
In the press room, in strode Pete Williams, the court reporter for NBC News, Joan Biskupic of USA Today, Bob Barnes of the Washington Post, and all the "bigs" of the Supremes' court media.
Then an elderly gentleman with a cane came in, smiled, and introduced himself. "Hello," he said. "I'm covering this for the Cordova Times." (!)
I was more than a little territorial, proud to be representing the tiny ground-central town most affected by the oil spill.
"I'm covering the case for the Cordova Times," I said. "Who are you?"
He was the husband of a former Times editor, it turned out. The court staff was kind to let him in, as he ostentiously lacked pen, notebook or other accoutrements of a working reporter. He ended up essentially in a hallway behind the working press.
Around 9:20 a.m., 40 minutes before the court would convene, the "bigs" were escorted out first to sit in the permanent press corps section to the right of the justices' bench.
Next came the rest of us to be portioned out in alcoves crammed with chairs, behind the "bigs." The chairs were packed like in a really popular comedy club, reminding me of D.C.'s old Cellar Door.
Robert Dillon, a former colleague at Alaska Newspapers stringing for the Fairbanks News-Miner, knew what to expect.
Those of us brand new to this experience -- namely most of the Alaska fishing town journalists, from Kodiak mainly -- quizzed folks from USA Today and the National Law Journal on how to interpret what we saw.
"Can we interpret what the judges think by their questions, or is that a mistake?" I asked two reporters from the National Law Journal.
"Yes, you can interpret," they told me, unless the justices were obviously playing devil's advocate. They said one could start by understanding that justices Scalia and Thomas were resolutely pro-business, and thus likely votes for Exxon, and then study the others' remarks for clues to their leanings.
We less-celestial journalists were rounded into our alcove seats, and our alcove had three Kodiakers, myself, and the suffering-from-a-bad-cold Dahlia Lithwick of Slate.com.
Just before 10 a.m., Toby Sullivan of the Anchorage Press, a former commercial fisherman and plaintiff from Kodiak, and I were inexplicably singled out from everyone else and summoned to rise and follow a brusque female officer of the court.
I worried that we were getting moved from decent seats in front of our alcove to Siberia, farther back near the hallway, alongside my fake Cordova Times counterpart. If I was demoted down to the hallway, where officers signaled which justice was speaking using a number of fingers and a code for each justice, because you couldn't see anything, my reporting was going to suffer even more than it did already from not knowing the court in any great detail.
I was about to protest when we were actually led, not into Siberia, but forward into the chamber proper and shown seats in with the "bigs." The little Cordova Times was about to be seated beside the Washington Post. Though honored that Toby and I were recognized as legit, and that the court officers were kind enough to show courtesy to journalists covering the oral arguments for residents of small-town Alaska, my seat at the end of the row seemed even more claustrophobic than the seat in the alcove.
"Dana, do you want my seat?" I called to Dana Milbank, the Washington Post political reporter superstar, who had arrived late and been shoved into our alcove.
Milbank had no idea who I was yet didn't question why I would know who he was. If you know you are a "big" you are not surprised at being known to strangers. Dana said sure if I was sure.
I was sure I didn't want to be packed in with the bigs. I wanted back with the "smalls." This was a David vs. Goliath case, and I was happier with the Alaskans.
Dana sat down a seat or two away from his Post colleague Bob Barnes, who mockingly asked if he'd bought anything to write with -- color columnists can just sit and listen, he implied -- and I returned to the Official Alaska Alcove to sit by Dahlia Lithwick.
Dahlia actually mentioned the invitation to Toby and me to move at the start of her fabulous column -- fabulous in its writing style, its sympathy to Alaskans and the fact she wrote while fighting a wicked respiratory disorder. Her column is headlined, Oil and Water: The Exxon Valdez case runs aground at the Supreme Court:
The high court is teeming with Alaskans this morning, and the press office has made a superhuman effort to accommodate them all. ... Outside the court, Alaskans hold banners demanding justice. And flanking me in the press section today are reporters from at least four different Alaskan newspapers. One is himself a plaintiff in the Exxon suit. A few moments before argument begins, a passel of them are even moved up to the two front rows reserved for the permanent press corps—sacred ground to which your ordinary beat reporter dare not aspire.Milbank made good use of the seat I had been offered to crane his neck and listen, rarely taking notes but soaking it all in. His column is entitled, At the High Court, Damage Control:
Exxon Mobil, the giant oil corporation appearing before the Supreme Court yesterday, had earned a profit of nearly $40 billion in 2006, the largest ever reported by a U.S. company -- but that's not what bothered Roberts. What bothered the chief justice was that Exxon was being ordered to pay $2.5 billion -- roughly three weeks' worth of profits -- for destroying a long swath of the Alaska coastline in the largest oil spill in American history. "So what can a corporation do to protect itself against punitive-damages awards such as this?" Roberts asked in court.The other major thing I noticed was that NPR's Nina Totenberg, who had the seat very closest to the bench, was wearing a bright, shiny, light brown leather jacket in violation of the dress code that had sent me to Value Village.The lawyer arguing for the Alaska fishermen affected by the spill, Jeffrey Fisher, had an idea. "Well," he said, "it can hire fit and competent people."
The rare sound of laughter rippled through the august chamber. The chief justice did not look amused.
As I had been temporarily led to a seat in the row behind her, the court officer had told me to "put away my sunglasses," hanging on the front of my blouse. "They're reading glasses," I replied, alarmed that they she might confiscate them, and I might need them.
"Well put them away," she repeated, and I complied, though they didn't have a fraction of the shine and potential of Nina's leather jacket to distract the Supremes from their Very Important Work.
Oh, here's a link to my curtainraiser story, Cordovans vs. Exxon: Spill victims plead passionate case as high court hears appeal, and a scan of this week's Cordova Times with my story appears below.
My story on the Supreme Court's oral arguments is here online: "Supreme Court weighs case to cut oil-spill award."
And thus have I covered my biggest story in my 35-year career while working for my littlest newspaper, the Cordova Times, circulation 1,000.
UPDATE: My curtainraiser story was mentioned in the Anchorage Daily News Newsreader, image here:
Click above
My second front-page, with a story I wrote, my photo of lead attorney Jeffrey Fisher, and a graphic I helped to put together:
Click above to read full-size version.
February 14, 2008
Peyton Manning's hilarious United Way spoof
Don't know why football is such a ripe area for satire, as I blogged on twice recently -- Cute football videos and Ask Michael Wilbon? Not! -- but here's another classic from Saturday Night Live:
I think this video captures why Peyton Manning is all over the airways and Tom Brady is not ... Manning has a great Q (likeability) rating, Brady for all his ostensible humility and team-first attitude seems to be a guy all about supermodel girlfriends and getting off stage as quickly as possible after a game.
I missed until now that The Onion has been having a field day with anti-Patriots sentiment:
Patriots Proud Of Defeating Whoever That Last Team Was
FOXBOROUGH, MA—Patriots quarterback Tom Brady diplomatically emphasized that defeating whoever it was they had just played gave him and his teammates a great sense of accomplishment during his post-game press conference Sunday. "It's always very satisfying to get out there and get a win against…against those guys," Brady said, adding that it was a mistake to take those other guys for granted as they were capable of making a few plays. "They definitely had some sort of game plan, and they were running around fairly fast out there. We overcame a lot to triumph over, uh, you know, them." According to Brady, the Patriots still need to correct a number of mistakes during the week's practices, execute better, and prepare for that one team they have to defeat next.
And here's a classic:
Patriots' Season Perfect For Rest Of Nation
FOXBOROUGH, MA—As the once-invincible, still-insufferable Patriots attempt to come to grips with their 17-14 Super Bowl loss to the Giants, the death of their dream to go undefeated, and the possible end of their dynasty, almost every other person in America is reveling in what they consider the perfect ending to New England's season."I just couldn't imagine a better ending to the Patriots odyssey," said Simon Williams, a Kansas City-area football fan who usually watches the college game but found himself caught up in the Patriots' sheer loathsomeness during the season. "The utter lack of humility they displayed alongside an equal lack of any joy in the game, that toad of a coach, and that cologne-ad quarterback… If they have to act that badly while playing that well, you really want to see them fail in the biggest way possible. Thank God almighty, that's what we got."
- posted by jbelliveau at 8:48 AM in Parodies
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February 7, 2008
The shelf life of books, including my first
Calvin Trillin once noted that books "have a shelf life somewhere between milk and yogurt."
By this yardstick, my first book, An Amateur's Guide to the Planet
But somehow "Amateur" keeps rolling along, not fragile like yoghurt, maybe more like the hamburger in "Supersize Me" that refused to grow moldy after weeks in the open air ... well on second thought, that may not be the best comparison.
"Amateur" came out in 1996, and I've wanted for a while to overhaul it. It would be neat to update and freshen up some of its information and data, and also convert each of its 12 chapters into expanded, individual e-books packed with new color scans of my photos of the places visited, from China and Madagascar to Borneo and Greece.
One of the big drawbacks of the original was a Photoshop error I made in calibrating for print such that close to all the interior photos came out too dark. New color photos would bring out the full potential of the chapters.
This would take a lot of time away from progressing on new projects, so I haven't assayed this idea yet.
Given the fact that a 12-year-old book should be roughly 11.9 years past retirement, with some shock I filled a bunch of orders in December by Amazon.com.
Then "Amateur" temporarily cracked the top 80,000 ... which is kind of a bigger deal than it sounds, since the competition for any sales is fierce given a glut of 150,000 new books per year ... granted it only takes a few sales to pull out of ranking in the 700,000 to 1 million range.
The Amazon.com ranking of 'An Amateur's Guide to the Planet' circa late December.
The burst seems to have been triggered by the addition of a professor at another college using "Amateur" as required reading for geography course work.
Sure enough, in December I received significant orders from two colleges, explaining the surge.
I want to thank professor Conrad Nicoll at Cal State-Fullerton, who has begun using "Amateur" for his Global Geography course, and to Corban College in Oregon for the latest in a series of orders using "Amateur" to teach intercultural communication to its missions students.
Cal State-Fullerton brings the total to about 31 colleges and universities that have used "Amateur" to teach students (adoptions list here). It is a big wow as an author to be not only read but studied by others.
And it remains an astonishment to me that my first book is taught in colleges. I never expected this ... You always think your readers are going to be people like yourself ... in my case, Northeasterners who travel to exotic places.
Boy was I wrong. "Amateur" has proved strongest in terms of lay readers in Seattle, the Bay Area and the Colorado Front Range ... crunchy granola territory. It also did well in Madison, Wisc., Chapel Hill, N.C., and other college towns.
Nor did I have any notion I had an offbeat college course book on my hands.
"Amateur's" college adoptions list is kind of amazing, an eclectic (to say the least) mix of state universities, independent religious schools, Pacific Northwest colleges and Bible Belt academies with a focus on mission work.
The religious and Bible Belt categories arise from "Amateur's" third chapter on mission work in Borneo, I think, or maybe a later chapter on Bali and how we view Heaven. I reread the Borneo chapter recently and really enjoyed it as a reader ... one can say that as a writer because after many years, you become quite objective about something you wrote. When I reread the Burma chapter for example, I wish it went in a clearer direction as to Burma's impact on me as a tourist.
My accidental career as the author of a cultural geography/intercultural communication book began circa 1998 with a visit to the public radio show at WYSO at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. I was about to speak that night at Books and Co. in nearby Dayton, Ohio.
I had gotten over much of my public speaking phobia after numerous media appearances and about 50 bookstore talks. Further, I was playing the writing eccentric a bit, breezing into the station with my sheltie ... I can't remember where we put him ... and being further relaxed by meeting Vick Mickunas, an amiable fellow with long, wavy dark blond hair and if memory serves, a Fu Manchu. From this photo on the Web, he is now clean shaven.
I got into Vick's comfortable studio. He puts visitors at ease and asks fantastic questions, which I answered in a light-hearted manner, and during the breaks whirled in circles on my guest's swivel chair, finally in some kind of relaxed rhythm with this whole idea of being on the radio.
I think later misplaced the tape he gave me of one of my best interviews, drag! It helps the interview so much when someone actually reads and enjoys your book.
Listening to our conversation was communications professor Mike Lopez at nearby Cedarville College. When I got back home to Maryland, an e-mail awaited asking for something called a desk copy of "Amateur" so that he could use it as a possible text for his classes. I wish I remembered what I said about intercultural communication during my radio interview,but it must have been something that sounded intriguing.
From then I got the idea from Mike to get a mailing list to communications professors and sent them a flier about my book, and a related idea from my friend Jill Yesko to similarly mail fliers to cultural geography professors, and the rest is a little bit of travel book history.
Complimentary copies of "Amateur" were also used to reward more than $6,000 in donations to help tsunami victims (see my earlier blog entry, "Book aids tsunami relief"). With its cover photograph of the lovely Thai island of Ko Racha Yai, devastated by the tsunami, its description of a Thai sailing trip, and focus on additional Indian Ocean destinations, "Amateur" was an appropriate vehicle to help charitable organizations solicit help for Thailand's Phangnga Bay.
In restrospect, it all seems so obvious that I had packed my first book with almost too much information -- words, graphics, photos, large format, bibliography -- for someone to cozy into a chair with it, but it was useful for actually teaching information. Professors seemed to like most that "Amateur" was not a traditional textbook. It's organized the way a journalist would organize a newspaper article, 1, 2, 3, and jargon free ... and that is it's selling point, according to professor testimonials.
It's a blessing to see one's book have legs.
February 6, 2008
Cute football videos
Thanks to Cousin Laura in Bosstown for this one, which football historians will enjoy, on the Reebok site: click here.
My favorite moments are at 0:25, 0:53, 1:40-1:50 and 3:08. And I won't spoil them!
February 4, 2008
NFC East rules! best Super Bowl ever
Congratulations to the Giants for their gutsy win in the Super Bowl last night.
Lamont's get-together involving cousins and friends to watch the game broke, surprisingly, 5-2 in terms of rooting preferences in favor of the supposed underdog Giants. By game's end, family friend John was kicking himself that he hadn't put $500 on the 12-1/2 point underdogs.
We all agreed the spread was crazy, treating the Giants like no-accounts that had no business being there, even after they had beaten Tampa, Dallas and Green Bay on the road.
I am also picking up from neighbors a unanimous backing of the Giants, for a gamut of reasons, including a feeling the Ravens got jobbed by the zebras in their match vs. the Patriots.
For me, it was NFC East pride, where we hate-but-know the Giants, Cowboys and Eagles, and realize that our teams are battle-tested within their own conference, which sent three (!) out of its four teams into the postseason this year.
The most stunning moment for me was David Tyree's fourth-quarter catch, shown in part below, when he grabbed the ball in the air behind his head and bought it safely pressed against his helmet, cradled carefully above the turf to avoid an incompletion.
Cousin Michael, rooting for the Patriots, shook his head and had to admit, "I think that's the best catch I've ever seen."
This may be the second Immaculate Reception in Super Bowl history.
The catch began with some of the wildest football theater in a long time -- Eli Manning's improbable escape of a certain sack to get free and lob the ball to Tyree.
Just before, unheard-of Giants rookie tight end Kevin Boss (who?) got free for a long reception, and just after, Plaxico Burress, who ate the Packers for dinner two weeks ago, caught the go-ahead touchdown, where he was so wide open the only question was could he get a case of nerves and drop the ball. Fox showed a fabulous piece of tape showing Manning and Burress practicing the exact winning play prior to the game.
Joel Achenbach writes about "The Catch That Replaces The Catch:"
I've wasted a lot of my life watching football and can't recall ever seeing a greater catch. Sure, there have been circus catches before, including receivers catching the ball behind the back of a defender. We've seen one-handed catches galore. But this was on the biggest stage in the final minute of a game wiith his team trailing. And head to head with The Catch, this one was better. Eli Manning had to elude a more violent pass rush than Montana -- Manning almost went under, but tore himself away and managed to toss that prayer downfield. And although both Clark and Tyree had to make leaping grabs, by comparison Clark's catch was schoolyard stuff, something you'd see in flag football. Tyree's practically caught the ball with the back of his neck and his shoulder blades.
And the AP has an entire story on the "New" Catch here.
YouTube has a fantastic clip here: Here's another photo:
It was obvious to Michael and Lamont, rooting for the Pats, that Coach Belicheck erred in the first half going for it on fourth down unsuccessfully -- instead of trying a field goal. Brady had been under pressure all game and it should have been clearer that this was not going to be a Patriots' pointfest.
Lamont feels this coaching error cost the Pats a tie at the end of regulation. "My team won! I just won a dollar from your father. To think that there were two Mannings in two years" (winning as Super Bowl quarterbacks). She mentioned seeing an interview crediting father Archie Manning and brother Peyton with Eli's development. I read today ("Once more, a Manning puts the M in MVP") however that Archie credits his wife with his sons' gridiron prowess: "Manning pulled what Brady used to do in the fourth quarter," Mom continued. How did she rate this Super Bowl? "The most exciting one -- really -- even compared to the ones the Redskins were in." I have to agree, based on the heroics and theater on the final Giants drive. P.S. Lamont considers the Patriots to in truth have had a 17-2 season, considering the Ravens to have beaten them during their controversial visit to Baltimore Dec. 3. Congrats to the no-names on the Giants -- Boss and Tyree and Strahan's less glamorous defensive teammates -- for putting on a rare Super Bowl that is a struggle down to the wire vs. a blowout. Hats off to the Redskins' rivals, whom I cannot recall ever rooting for before, and let's have some respect for has to be the NFL's strongest division in terms of coaching talent. Good for Tom Coughlin righting himself after his rocky finish in Jacksonville and rocky start in New York to sell his players on a vision of success. And watch for the Redskins to make a move on Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spangnuolo for Washington's head coaching vacancy after his brilliant plan that saw pressure roaring down on Brady all night long. PS Update on Michael Wilbon, whom I blogged about here -- he suffered a heart attack, I would guess linked to the stress of the post-Sean Taylor backlash in part, and writes a humble and insightful column on people he's attacked in print have treated him in kindly now that he is in distress: A Life-Changing Turn of Events.
While the blogosophere has hammered Wilbon for the particulars of this remark -- both his timing and his facts were w-a-a-a-ay off -- no one takes him to the woodshed better than the sports parodists at Kissing Suzy Kolber, in this column, Ask Michael Wilbon!
This reminds of this laugh-out-loud sports parody: Washington Redskins' long snapper Ethan Albright's profane purported rebuttal to John Madden at being rated the lowest of all the players on Madden '07: Ethan Albright Strikes Back. I've reproduced it with a few strategic earmuffs emoticons:
Finally, as embarrassingly in the tank for Joe Gibbs as was my recent blog entry -- it might as well have been titled "How Joe Gibbs Saved My Marriage" -- apparently I am restrained compared to some fans of the coach, who believe Gibbs is both Jesus and want polygamy legalized so they can marry him. Blogger Patty Nixx writes:
Wilbon's Post columnist buddy Mike Wise about nails all our hyperbole in this column when he notes that Gibbs was welcomed on his return four years with a rapture and "fanfare befitting George Patton and, well, Gandhi."
I finally was granted minutes ago a one-on-one interview with noted Redskins fan and Washington mood bellweather Mary G. Belliveau, my mother, who gives permission to quote her in my blog.
In this interview, she channels her late brother Robert F. Williams Jr., a long-time basketball coach in suburban Boston, in her understanding of sports:
"Coach Joe Gibbs, oh my goodness, we will miss him. Well I can understand why he retired, he gave 1,000 percent for four years, and I don't know if he could see the light at the end of the tunnel with Collins or not. He had a few moments of the spotlight and a few moments of hope, and an awful lot of of downers. What I remember about all the four years is the dropped footballs, I'm sorry to say, as a spectator. I don't know what he could do about it.
"There were some valiant efforts, some fellows who never stopped trying, there are some you wonder what they're doing there.
"He's such a wonderful person to have around anyway, he and Danny were matched, like the one before, Jack Kent Cooke, they were kind of matched."
Well that about says it. Here is a nice Washington Post graphic of bizarre problems and miscues that dogged the Gibbs II era -- Mom is on the money in her impression.
Now we'll just sit back and see if the 'Skins hire Bill Cowher, promote Gregg Williams, or go with Plan C. Maybe get some big receivers who can hang on to the ball along with a new coach.
"I give their mother all the credit. I call her the great equalizer. She's calm, she never gets upset, she always makes good decisions. I think that's carried over to them."
January 10, 2008
Ask Michael Wilbon? Not!
I suspect Washington Post sports columnist Michael Wilbon, self-anointed as omniscient and "never surprised," got banned from writing columns about the Redskins for a while after he posted the following about Sean Taylor in a chat as the Redskins safety was dying:
I've known guys like Taylor all my life, grew up with some. They still have shades of gray and shouldn't be painted in black and white ... I know how I feel about Taylor, and this latest news isn't surprising in the least, not to me. Whether this incident is or isn't random, Taylor grew up in a violent world, embraced it, claimed it, loved to run in it and refused to divorce himself from it. He ain't the first and won't be the last. We have no idea what happened, or if what we know now will be revised later. It's sad, yes, but hardly surprising.
Though what Wilbon said was true of Taylor until age 22 -- no one in the organization seemed to find him especially likeable until his daughter was born, and he only grew up the last two years of his life -- it goes too far to say he "embraced" and "claimed" a violent world anymore by the time he was 24.
Bob T., Bethesda: Hi Mike, I’m a big fan. I just wanted to get your most recent thoughts on Sean Taylor’s death. Has your perspective changed at all in recent days?
Read it all here.
Am I jealous that I didn't write this myself? Yes. Am I surprised that a blog with the inspired name of Kissing Suzy Kolber has this caliber of parody? No.
Michael Wilbon: What a stupid question. I’m a journalist, okay? I stand by what I wrote. Is his death sad? Yes. Did it surprise me? Not in the least. Not any aspect of it at all. Not even the time it occurred, which was early morning. Now I knew Sean a little bit. Not a lot. Just a little bit. And I can tell you, that bad elements WERE a part of his life at some point. Maybe not anymore. But they were there. So don’t bring that junk about me having to change my perspective. Okay?
An inebriated Joe Namath leans in to try to kiss a ducking Suzy Kolber, announcing, "I want to kiss you. I couldn't care less about the team struggling." See the full YouTube video here, including the announcers' inane reaction, "Joe's just a happy guy!" ... "Isn't he!"
Albright even responded to the letter in this Post interview:
Even with the rating he probably would have remained anonymous were it not for a profanity-filled letter to NBC Sports analyst John Madden, who helped EA Sports develop the game. The letter carried Albright's name on the bottom with the signature line "Rot in Hell" that made its way around the Internet. He did not write the letter and admits that when he first saw it, "I laughed my butt off."
Update Jan. 26, 2008: Ethan Albright has been added to the Pro Bowl, reports Redskins Insiders' Jason La Canfora, prompting a witty comment from micmoliver, "Wonder if this will increase his rating on Madden?"I have to say that I have matured and blossomed into quite a gal. The first time Joe Gibbs retired, I climbed under a desk and wept like a turtle. This time, my phone rang at 6am and I figured either someone was dead or Joe Gibbs had retired so I approached the phone like a cougar hunting a bunny, took the news like an adult, and reached for some Xanax...like an adult. Joe has earned the right to do whatever he wants. He is Jesus in burgandy and gold. Ergo, if he wants to leave to spend time with his family, that's ok.......but if I see him out and about, he had better be covered with grandkids and cousins and doing family stuff or my new found maturity may decrease.
She noted earlier during the Redskins' winning streak:
If anyone trash talks the above man, Joe Gibbs, they'll have to go through me. This man is a saint and after the way he's held the team together through Sean Taylor's murder, injuries, and all the heart breaking losses this year, win, lose, or draw, he is the man. If polygamy were legal in the state of Virginia, I would get down on my knee and offer both him and his lovely wife my hand in marriage. I think I speak for many in Redskin Nation when I say, "I'm sorry I ever doubted you, Joe". I actually declared my football season over about a month ago out of frustration. Now, Joe's leadership and Sean's guidance from above has had me drunkingly prancing about on Sundays again the last few weeks. At this point, when I look at Joe Gibbs, I see him wearing a robe and sandals with a beard and long hair turning water into wine. In fact, next time I see him, I shall simply hand him a jug of water, tell him I'm planning a cocktail party but I'm broke, so please do your thing. Help out a sister!
Patty goes on to note, "I think every traffic circle in D.C. should have a bronze statue of him and I'd kiss the feet of the statue at every opportunity."
