As Jack Shafer observes in yesterday’s column, the Annie Le murder has received the sort of national coverage usually reserved for celebrity deaths and award-show gaffes. To wit, Shafer’s incomplete but telling catalog:

The New York Times…has already published five articles about Le’s disappearance and murder and the apprehension of suspect Raymond Clark III. The Boston Globe has published at least six stories about the case, and the Washington Post has run at least three briefs from the Associated Press. The Times of London, published five time zones away, can’t seem to sate its appetite for Annie Le news. Even the proletarian New York tabloids—the Post and the Daily News—have gone ape for the story.

…besides which, a slew of well-sourced and quick-response articles in the university’s paper of record, and, by my count, two cover spots in the Washington Post Express.

My problem with Shafer’s piece isn’t his gripe that crimes at Yale and Harvard receive undue attention. (They do; always have.) I went to Yale—graduated, even—and Shafer’s points are well taken. But what the media critic misses is that, when it comes to murder, the Ivy League’s disproportionate share of media attention is part of a larger, and more regrettable, trend.

Read More “The Annie Le Media Fest: It’s Not Just About the Ivies” »

Anybody who doesn’t think the line between college and pro sports is thin or gone ignores Greivis Vasquez, who is both the Maryland Terps best basketball player, and the most hated by the team’s followers.

I don’t think I’d ever heard a college player booed by home fans like Vasquez was last year. It was like Juwan Howard at MCI Center right before he was run out of town. But Howard was getting paid eight-figures a year (!) to take that abuse.

Vasquez tried to get out of College Park, but yesterday he withdrew his name from the upcoming NBA draft.

Seems NBA scouts thought less of him than the Terps fans.

Seriously, do other college stars get booed at home?

***

Manny Acta lives to lose again!

The Nationals manager-for-now got to watch Elijah Dukes misplay two balls hit to the outfield by consecutive Yankees batters in the seventh inning, turning two outs into two Yankees runs and a lead into a loss in New York.

The .258 winning percentage means the Nats are now on a pace to beat the ‘62 Mets mark of 120 losses.

Why is Acta still around?

Well, much appreciated Cheap Seats Daily commenter Angry Al posted that Acta’s going to stay no matter how much losing goes on, because the Lerners are so cheap they don’t want to pay Acta and pay another manager.

Read More “Cheap Seats Daily: Vasquez Stays Another Year? Acta Stays Another Day? Sosa Juiced? Lupica Led the Blind?” »

Good morning, City Desk readers, and welcome to another edition of Freedom Friday. We’re wrapping up our Summer Music Guide as I type, and I can assure you that it’s going to be a doozie–the kind of doozie you’ll likely keep on your coffee table from May 15 through September 1 as a quick reference to the summer’s most notable shows, from Baltimore to Richmond and everywhere in between.

William Saletan vs. John McWhorter and Stephen Colbert vs. Byron York, after the jump.

Read More “Our Morning Roundup: McWhorter, Saletan, and the Color of Performance” »

Slate magazine is one of the founding fathers of Web aggregation. Long before the term started getting passed around at publishing conferences and dissed in editorial meetings, Slate was producing “Today’s Papers” along with magazine roundups and so on.

But the smart-aleck online publication isn’t going to stand pat with its aggregational offerings. It’s hiring (!) new aggregators.

According to an e-mail seeking applicants, the mag is “going to be increasing the pace and scope of our aggregation features. We want to hire two very energetic media omnivores who can write fast, read faster, and have a sense of humor. These would be contract positions with Slate.”

I understand that every publication on the interwebs is trying to crack the whole ‘monetizing’ nut, but these scrollovers really take things too far.

Take Slate. This a.m., I stole three minutes from actual work to read up on the essentials—you know, my daily dose of counterintuitive rhetorical questions and columns on the best way to break one’s leg. Before I could click through to a piece on “why you should let your kid suck his thumb” or a Jack Shafer column asking, “prithee, does we need newspapers?” a ginormous Volkswagen ad swooped in, flashing sleek images of a black sedan and dropping catchphrases like “ART GALLERY QUALITY INTERIOR” and “POSITIVELY OOZES CLASS.” Yum! Before I knew it, I had accidentally clicked on an article asking whether socialized medicine had killed Natasha Richardson. I did not read this article.

Read More “Scroll Over, Beethoven” »

I’m not one for fellating fellow journalists, but I’d make a knee-bruising exception for Slate’s Ron Rosenbaum, the first big-name journalist (who’s not a card-carrying libertarian) to stick up for President-elect Barack Obama’s nicotine addiction.

Read More “Ron Rosenbaum: Leave Obama (the Smoker) Alone!” »

Hope you all had pleasant Thanksgivings, readers. Here are some tasty tidbits from today’s news:

-Mumbai (India) is a disaster. Daniel Politi at Slate writes a smart synopsis.

-Ever been Rick-Rolled? (It’s terrible–google it with caution). Andrew Sullivan has a way for you to enjoy the Rick without the Roll.

-The Washington Post has the latest on the Chevy Chase killings. (Insert deserved cynicism here over the efficiency with which the cops are solving the murders of two old, white, rich folk–while shrugging their shoulders over various shootings and deaths in the ghettos.)

-Writing in the Washington Times, Ziad Asali asserts post-election that “Racism, the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room, has shrunk and is now no bigger than a jackass.” Whew, glad that’s over with!

A month ago I suggested that Slate was growing old. I based my opinion on a rather untimely article about the word “FAIL.” The argument still stands. My evidence? A new article by Farhad Manjoo on how to use Skype.

Read More “Slate’s Tech Writing: Behind the Curve” »

* Wonkette live-blogged Barack Obama’s television infomercial last night on “poverty and murder.” All you need to know:

8:22 — Nevermind, the mother wasn’t the fourth Poor in his story. It’s Joe Biden.
8:22 — No — it’s Claire McCaskill.
8:22 — No — It’s Barack Obama. He is the fourth Poor in his own story.
8:23 — No, REALLY, It’s some guy named Mark, Louisville, lost job at factory, unemployment lines, can’t afford shit, THIS IS MOVING SO FAST, he wants to– THE END OBAMA SHOOTS A THREE POINTER.

* Playgirl editor forces Jezebel editor to consider Barack Obama’s penis.

* The New Gay takes 9:30 club patrons to task for dancing, homophobia, tallness.

* John Dickerson for Slate: Why is the McCain camp so happy?

* GWU blog The Colonialist finds something fishy within the new McCain attack ad.

* And in this newspaper:

- The Battle For the Mid-Atlantic: CP chronicles the last legs of the local campaign. Justin Moyer takes McCain; Franklin Schneider takes Obama.

- Which D.C. Pharmacies won’t stock your contraception.

- Loose Lips tells you to write-in for Carol Schwartz. Bring a pencil.

- And in arts: Maura Judkis on Richard Avadon; Aaron Leitko reviews Gang Gang Dance.

Photo of the 9:30 Club by rpongsaj.

* In case you missed her: Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz on Palin’s Katie Couric interview. “Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, in her third interview since joining the Republican presidential ticket, licked her finger and stuck it in the air, saying that Sen. Barack Obama might wait and “see what way the political wind’s blowing” on the Wall Street rescue package,” he writes.

* For those interested in competing in one of those high-stakes, emotionally wrenching reality television programs—and for those whose place of employment merely imitate them—Slate’s Joanna Weiss has your guide to how not to be the first contestant kicked off a reality show.

* New Columbia Heights has updates on the proposed neighborhood farmer’s market: At a recent ANC meeting, William Jordan proposed that the market be run by EMG Marketing Group and Change Inc. and be held three (!) times a week.

* Mr. T in D.C. bows respectfully to the employees of the Columbia Heights Subway sandwich shop:

I just wanted to thank them here today. By now, all the employees there recognize me, and know what kind of sandwich I usually get. . . . The two women who work there on weekday evenings are particularly helpful and pleasant. They recently told me they were from Eritrea; I wonder what their lives were like there? It’s not very far from lawless, violent places like Darfur and Somalia.

And in this newspaper:

* Arthur Delaney on D.C. Jail disaster readiness, terrorist threats, and the power of Google.

* Tim Carman tries to make a bagel, lies to City Paper staff.

* Mike DeBonis on the Nat’s stadium slush fund.

* … and the debut of Orr Shtuhl’s Beerspotter!

Image courtesy pingnews.

- As Obama clinches the nomination, Slate catches up on the Biden ring tones. They’ve got “articulate and bright and clean” as well as the old favorite, “You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

- Sick of the ‘ol convention twitter feed? Brightest Young Things is still live-blogging Project Runway.

- Behold: The Secret History of Pop Cesspool, Volume Eight. This time, P.C. engages in some mid-80’s clandestine pool jukeboxing.

- All Our Noise give us a back-to-school playlist inspired by Buffy.

- The Post’s Laura Yao critiques “The Re-Education of Women,” a new “guide to men” written by area man Dante Moore. “Maybe feminism is dead,” writes Yao, who fits in a number of funny Moore anecdotes before the kicker: “And so it is that in this messed-up world where relationships between men and women are plagued by misunderstandings, we are all to take lessons from a man who says his best decision as a teenager was to stop treating women well.”

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Every journalist, at some point in his or her life, must write the “I’ve seen something out in the world which confuses me” piece. Andy Rooney does it every week. Me, I’ve publicly scratched my head about umbrellas. But I tried to keep my whining to a couple of sentences, and Rooney’s done gassing in a couple minutes. Over at Slate, Ron Rosenbaum, by all accounts otherwise a man with a fine brain, has dedicated more than 2,000 words to his confusion about crosswords and sudoku.

Rosenbaum’s thesis, such as it is, is that people who do such puzzles are somehow doing harm to their own intelligence. To argue this point, he opens with the deadliest lede in creation, then frosts this dry cupcake with punny sprinkles for us to gag on:

Doing puzzles reflects not an elevated literary sensibility but a degraded letter-ary sensibility

What are some of the other defenses of the puzzle people? “It trains the mind.”…. I’d say that instead it drains the mind.

Rosenbaum’s Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer shtick would be funny if he revealed any effort to actually understand what he’s discussing. He picks up a copy of Will Shortz’ Funniest Crossword Puzzles, then expresses bafflement because he read the first five clues and didn’t crap himself with laughter. [Nerd hat on]To the extent crosswords are funny, the humor is in the answers to the themed clues.[Nerd hat off] Later, Rosenbaum congratulates himself on his intellectual superiority after watching a fellow working a crossword that has the clue “Mauna ___.” “Whew, though one, dude,” bleats Rosenbaum. [Nerd hat on]The answer could be either LOA or KEA, and it’s perfectly sensible to delay filling out the answer there.[Nerd hat off]

The running theme in Rosenbaum’s piece is that people who do puzzles could better spend their time reading. “Need I suggest that those who spend time doing crossword puzzles (or sudoku)…could be doing something else that involves words and letters? It’s called reading,” he writes. (Here’s a fun puzzle: Imagine you’re Ron Rosenbaum and try to write about something without egregiously overusing italics. If you can do it, you win!) Is it too much to ask that reporters writing a piece spend a little time doing more research before embarrassing themselves in public? Rosenbaum, surely tugging on his suspenders as he guffaws, notes that the Times crossword offers a toll number for people to call to “buy a clue.” This is the Comstock Lode of pun-rich hilarity to him. “But couldn’t it be said that even people who don’t have to buy a clue, but spend their time pursuing clues to the meaningless puzzles, are clueless?”

Oh, Ron. Just drop me a line. I’ll clue you in for free.

* Upset the Setup gets upset at the hip-hop scene over at Chief Ike’s.

* In Shaw gives D.C. a housing pop quiz: Can you tell what year this report on D.C.’s housing problems was written?

* All Our Noise marks the album birthday of The Ramones‘ Adios Amigos. The record is now 13. Is this really cause for celebration? Whatever … at least there are sombrero dinos.

* Listen up, John McCain: Mr. T in D.C. tells you how to know when you’re officially old. The incontrovertible evidence:

For decades, I’ve consistently disliked dried fruit: raisins, craisins, prunes, you name it … All of a sudden, I’ve discovered a newfound taste for dried fruit … I’m snacking on raisins as we speak! I keep a box in my desk for when I get hungry, and at home I’ve been experimenting with those more upscale, resealable packs of dried fruit. I’ve tried out a couple of different kinds of raisins, dried mango, pineapple, dates, and have a bag of dried blueberries I’m dying to open … I may even try the ultimate in geezer confirmation fruit: prunes.

* Slate’s Christopher Beam imagines alternate scenarios that would explain John Edwards‘ alleged late-night visit to his alleged lover and their alleged love-child. My favorite:

Edwards had come to return Hunter’s sari, which she had left the time he came to return her bomber jacket, which she had left the time he came to return her charm bracelet, which she had left the time he came to return her first edition of Pulp’s His and HersDifferent Classes, which she had left on the campaign bus in Reno.

Photo by NCinDC

* Good morning! Slate’s got all your military sleep-reduction news.

* The Brightest Young Things discuss when rompers go wrong.

* Mr. T in D.C. sets some rules for TV watching at the gym. In: CNN and 80’s music videos. Out: Entertainment Tonight and Fox News. This writer humbly submits the perfect gym entertainment: Discovery Channel’s Cash Cab.

* The Post has a great profile of the man accused of stealing a rare Shakespeare first folio from the University of Durham:

Scott, a tall, thin man, has never really had a job, but he said his mother (whom he referred to at one point as “Lady Bountiful”) bankrolls his trips—and his gold Versace ring, his diamond Rolex and a succession of exquisite cars: a Rolls-Royce, an Aston Martin, a Lamborghini, a silver Ferrari.

Speaking in a hotel with a plate of langoustines in front of him—lobsters couldn’t be found—Scott said he remembered the moment he realized how much better the best was. He was 18, and he had slipped his feet into handmade Italian leather shoes.

* Tonight’s picker-uper: Lenny Campello of Daily Campello Art News will give a talk tonight at 5:30 p.m. at Smith Farm’s Healing Arts Gallery on Frida Kahlo and pain.

Photo by Mr. T in D.C.