Posts Tagged ‘New York Times’
Weekend in Review: The Menace of Street Racing
More bodies pile up thanks to the scourge that is street racing. This time, the two victims had pulled over to check out a race along I-70 just beyond the Baltimore city line. Last time, eight people were killed in Accokeek.
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Weekend in Review: Parking Tickets!
Before you do anything, learn all about our hometown fire chief’s outing at the Nats game. He freaked out when he saw there were fireworks going down. More!
Much has been made of the District’s plan to step up enforcement of parking restrictions all around town. The push will affect nightclubbers who try to press their luck in all of those spaces just shy of intersections, not to mention street-sweeping violators: The machines that roar down the alternating sides of certain D.C. streets will be equipped with cameras to nail all scofflaw automobiles in their way.
Our Morning Roundup: Don’t Ask About Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Good morning, City Desk readers, and welcome to a balmy addition of Freedom Friday. Last week I wrote that police in Mississippi arrested Pete Eyre, Adam Mueller, and Jason Talley of the Motorhome Diaries for filming a traffic stop. Thanks to the support of many liberty-minded folks the country over, the boys received $2,580 in bail donations and spent $1,487. Guess what they’re doing with the rest? Sending it back, via Paypal, to the people who gave it to them. (Take note Timothy Geithner, you theiving sumbitch.)
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and a teensy bit more about Maureen Dowd, after the jump.
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Cheap Seats Daily: The End of Days
Around 6:45 p.m. EST, Ryan Zimmerman grounded into a fielders choice in his fifth and final hitless plate appearance in San Francisco. His hitting streak, the best of the few reasons to pay attention to the Nationals this season, was done at 30 games.
A little after 7:30 p.m., a shot from Pittsburgh’s Sergei Gonchar goes off bodies in front of the net and Sidney Crosby pushes the loose puck in. Eight seconds of playing time later, Penguin Craig Adams scores his first career playoff goal. It’s 2-0, but the game, series and season feel over.
In one rotten hour, what had been a fab month in local sports was over.
When’s Redskins camp open?
***
Ted Leonsis always talks about the “10-step plan” that the Caps have been following. He means the rebuilding scheme that got them to verge of a conference final for the first time in 11 years.
But last night, an early victim of his plan came back to bite him.
Weekend in Review
Easter weekend, aka illegal parking weekend, went off pretty much hitchless here in D.C. Lots of people driving around in nice clothes—that’s what it looked like to me. Anyone ever take Metro to church? I mean really, have you ever heard someone utter the sentence, “Yeah, so I was late for church because of a delay on Metro. Red line was all screwed up.” That’s when we know we live in a green world, when WMATA starts announcing special Sunday service for services.
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Weekend in Review
Just some recap to get you feeling centered on this Monday morning: Washington City Paper’s “Best Of” issue came out last week—it was a whopper, with a readers poll that pulled in 29,000 ballots and a huge editorial hole filled with picks on everything from Best Restaurant to Best Place to Buy a TV Stand.
Weekend weather was a mixed bag, with a wet Saturday and a schizophrenic Sunday. Yeah, I know—you know that. But I am trying to break the mold here, giving weather “retrocasts” instead of forecasts.
And what a snoozer this NCAA tourney is. No parity in that league, whatsoever. Too many blowouts to make for good watching, Villanova v. Pitt notwithstanding. Can’t wait for the NBA playoffs, when teams that are well matched hit the hardwood.
You Ready for This, America?
From NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof’s Twitter feed:
Just interviewed Michelle Rhee, head of schools in D.C. She’s ground zero for school reform nationwide. I’ll write for Sunday.
So much for that supposed national media blackout.
A.G. Eric Holder Saves Medical Marijuana Industry, Considers Extending the Same Courtesy to Newspapers
Well, perhaps not exactly. From the New York Times:
Speaking with reporters, Mr. Holder provided few specifics but said the Justice Department’s enforcement policy would now be restricted to traffickers who falsely masqueraded as medical dispensaries and “use medical marijuana laws as a shield.”
Our Morning Roundup: The GeoPet Proposal
Good morning, City Desk readers, and welcome to another installment of Freedom Friday. Before we get started, I’d like to throw something out there: GeoPet. Can y’all feel that contraction bustle off your palate, like so many Metro riders leaving the Georgia Avenue-Petworth station? I can. Petworth needs this, folks. Why should AdMo, CoHi, and BloMi have all the fun? It would be so much easier to give directions, too: “The Looking Glass Lounge? Oh, it’s one block south of GeoPet”; “I’m going to grab some groceries at the GeoPet Safeway“; “Hey, let’s meet for lunch at Sweet Mango–it’s across the street from GeoPet.” Gah, so cool! Hey, Prince of Petworth, what do you say? Gonna throw your blog behind this one?
The American Enterprise Institute’s financial woes, Campus Progress‘ smear campaign, and creationists at the Smithsonian below the jump.
Weekend in Review
What a great weekend for all involved. Just a fine couple of break-out days, days to indulge in the early spring that this region belches up every year. They say that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, but the transition from king of the jungle to perennial doormat happens more quickly in D.C. Nothing like a few lines of throwaway weather talk to kick off the WIR!
From the New York Times comes this killer little bit of commentary on the free-agency moves of the Washington Redskins, which snatched up Albert Haynesworth of the Titans and DeAngelo Hall as well—both for bi bucks. Anyhow, let the New York paper take it away:
Guaranteed money: Granted, the Washington Redskins’ defense got a lot better, but giving Albert Haynesworth $41 million guaranteed — hours after guaranteeing DeAngelo Hall $22.5 million — left almost everyone else in the N.F.L. agog.
OK, but I think there’s going to be a little reverse mojo going on here. For years, the Skins would acquire free agents, and the moves never got them anywhere, going all the way back to Deion Sanders and Dan “Big Daddy” Wilkinson and Laveranues Coles and the like. Back then, people thought, wow, this team is gonna be something special. As we know, they specialized in mediocrity. But now that everyone is slamming them for these pay-scale busting acquisitions, I guarantee that Dan Snyder is going to look like a genius come this time next year.
Folks: I am sure I missed something here, but why on earth is Adrienne Washington writing about national stuff now (in this case, a tepid analysis of Obama’s health care plans)? Wasn’t she supposed to be a local kid?
And a note to the WashTimes Webmaster: When you put announcements up on the site, like this one about the hiring of an editorial page editor, make sure you get the dates right. This story, available on the site Sunday evening, said, “The Washington Times on Monday named Richard Miniter as editor of the editorial pages and vice president of opinion, the latest of a series of dramatic moves to boost the newspaper’s global impact.”
But it wasn’t Monday yet. I know times flies, especially when you’re boosting your global impact, but this is crazy.
A little self-promotion here.
Weekend in Review
Not sure whether the Newseum has an exhibit titled “Beat Sweeteners: A Quadrennial Tradition.” But if there is, I nominate Anne Kornblut’s Saturday piece in the Washington Post for a central place behind the glass. I am speaking of this piece of puffery, a profile of White House “fixer” and Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina. Now, if Messina has ever done anything untoward, anything tawdry or dumb, well, we’re not going to know that from Kornblut. Because here’s what she’s got to say about this man:
Starting with the lede:
Holed up in a windowless West Wing office, Jim Messina is working on his usual assignment: fixing President Obama’s problems.
Our Lunchtime Roundup: Bloggers, Booze, and Our Winners in the Readers’ Choice Photo Contest
Good afternoon, Washington. Below the links, City Paper is pleased to announce winners in its 2009 Inauguration Reader’s Choice Contest.
*Ben Smith touches on the New York Times-Politico spat; Greg Sargent, meanwhile, mediates between the rhetoric of NYT Exec. Editor Bill Keller and that of Politico’s John Harris.
*Farm Fresh Meat, hoping to cure his blogger’s block, escapes to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.
Lie, Schmie
Here’s how lame our news culture is getting these days. So Fox launches this stupid-as-shit TV show called “Lie to Me” starring Tim Roth, and right away the nation’s top newspapers print little reality checks on the show’s conceit.
First, the show. Roth plays Dr. Cal Lightman, name partner in the Lightman Group, and goes about getting really squinty-eyed and all kinds of probing when he talks to witnesses about crimes. Then, later, at the Lightman Group’s offices, he throws video of the witness interviews onto a giant screen and schools his colleagues in the fine points of detecting lies through stray and mendacious facial expressions and body language. The show comes off as a workshop in biometrics, though I’ll confess that I failed to sit through an entire episode.
Weekend in Review
OK, before getting into this huge news docket for the weekend, let me include a gratuitous slam on President’s Day Weekend. It’s a waste of taxpayer money, a disgrace in these lean times, a stupid holiday right in the middle of an ugly season, and it wreaks havoc on the Washington City Paper editorial deadlines. Enjoy Monday off, Rest of the World.
Big news coming out of Daytona. I mean, Kenseth is a monster.
Good feature on the front of Washington Post Metro today about an ages-old killing in Virginia, a confession, and the aftermath. I’ve been hearing some grumblings of late that the Metro people are having a tough time making it to A1. If so, this’d be Exhibit A in my case to the page-placement jury.
NYT has a great piece on an inquiry into corruption on part of U.S. officials in Iraq just after “Mission Accomplished.” Something about big wads of money in pizza boxes and the like. Also, this guy Burris–perhaps the best approach was indeed to send him out into the rain.
WashTimes, with the unscoop that Obama administration says stimulus key to economic recovery.
Examiner’s Nei-man needles Fenty for nominating two jogging buddies to posts.
Rodriguez: Washington City Paper Will Survive
That’s Rick Rodriguez, for all you morons who don’t recognize the leading lights in the world of journalism. Rick Rodriguez is a journalism professor at Arizona State University and former executive editor of the Sacramento Bee.
Such credentials have landed Rodriguez a spot on the roster of experts discussing the future–or lack thereof–for newspapers on the New York Times Web site.
Rodriguez predicts a time of turmoil in the world of local news coverage, with dailies cutting coverage or folding and new competitors trying to fill the void. “For a while it’ll be the Wild West in terms of journalistic standards, the rise and fall of old and new enterprises and an endless pursuit of new business models.”
But he’s got good news for papers like this one: “Among the best bets for adhering to traditional journalistic standards will be smaller, already-established newspapers that can expand their local influence. Alternative weeklies and ethnic media mostly will survive, and possibly even thrive by specializing in coverage of fields like entertainment or local politics.”
Is Rodriguez keeping up on our bankruptcy?
