NEWSHOUR HIGHLIGHT REEL!

A new feature here on Beitel-Blog. Every now and again I'll kowtow to all you Newshour groupies out there (you know who you are!) with a little running commentary on the latest highs and lows and in-betweens of the zaniest hour on television. Here's a few notable moments from the last couple of days:


High Point: Junot Diaz calling Jeff Brown "Bro." Do you think JD's kickin' it with his MIT friends and they're like, "I dare you to call the PBS guy 'bro,' bro!" And he's like, "No, bro, no can do. I just won the Pulitzer." And they're like, "Dude, you so totally HAVE to!" And he's like, "I don't know, bro, we'll see how it shakes down." Well, dude, it shook down just right and he snuck (sneaked?) it in there. Priceless, bro. Honorable Mention: I think I'm liking Margaret Warner's hair a lot better these days. A case where bangs are probably better than no bangs.

Low Point: Earl Hutchinson and Hugh Price clearly aren't Newshour groupies. If they were, they would've known that there is no disembodied alpha-male shouting allowed. I think it's part of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's charter. Which makes it, like, literally against the law or something. No usurping the moderator, no talking over people (even the lispy E.J. Dionne), and please try to keep your personality to a minimum while you're at it. This ain't The O'Reilly Factor. Is it just me, or can you actually see the vein in Judy Woodruff's forehead throbbing as she tries to crashland this sucker but Earl and Hugh won't let her? ("He's not electable if he can't make that connection!!!!!!!!!" "It's already had a negative impact!!!!!!!!!!!" AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!) Dude. Stressful.

In-Between Point: This one was neither good nor bad. Just interesting to observe. (So basically good, then, I guess.) Anyhoo, Jeff Brown interviews Robert Hass about his recent Pulitzer win (a theme this week, obviously) and it totally dawns on me that poets are completely different animals than, well, anybody really. Certainly different from the kind of talking head you usually find on TV, even on PBS. Here's a guy, Hass, who's achieved the pinnacle of success in his field by any objective measure (poet laureate, Pulitzer, every other major award a poet can win). So as far as poets go, he's pretty much the establishment candidate. But dude -- to paraphrase, appropriately enough, one of his poems -- can't quite find his way to a sentence.

And maybe that's the whole rub right there. Hass was thinking lilacs against white houses and trying to find his way to a sentence, whereas the typical talking head (the typical person) really isn't doing that, perhaps because she/he already knows exactly what she/he wants to say from the get-go.

It's not that Hass wasn't articulate. He was. Or that he didn't have anything interesting to say. He did. It just took him a while to A) discover what he thought and to B) articulate it in a way that translated to the rest of the world.

No -- in a way that translated to Jeff Brown, who could then translate it to the rest of the world.

Or no again -- in a way that translated to Jeff Brown, who could then translate it to the people who watch the Newshour, who could then do whatever it is old and/or over-educated people do with the rest of their evening (blog, for instance), leaving the rest of the world none the worse for wear.

Anyway, here's a cool interactive Robert Hass deal where you can ask him a question and stuff.

LOOK! UP IN THE SKY...IT'S A BIRD...IT'S A PLANE...IT'S A NUTTY FRENCHMAN ON A WIRE!

Three thoughts after reading this WaPo article on Philippe Petit (aka Phil Small), who walked back and forth eight times on a tight wire that he and a few of his buddies rigged up on the sly between the World Trade Center towers in 1974:

1. Two words: no net.

2. Are we sure that's not Conan O'Brien with a mullet?

3. Do you think people living in the 1970s ever imagined we would look back on that era as, by and large, an age of innocence?

TODAY'S LINKS!

• How many marine biologists does it take to thaw out a giant squid?
• Gene Robinson's take on Rev. Wright.
• And what Andy Sullivan thinks about the whole thing, at least by way of what he thinks about what Rush Limbaugh thinks about it. (Got that?)
• And what Agent Zero thinks about it. Actually, Agent Zero's still brooding about his ill-fated last few seconds of Game 4 with the Cavs.
• And, from the looks of it, Sen. Obama's got hoops on the brain about it too. The audacity of a running one-hander in the lane. Over a giant squid, no less!

THAT WHICH DOES NOT KILL YOU CAN ONLY MAKE YOU STRONGER...

Tell that to Kerwin Danley, the MLB umpire who got clocked in the jaw in L.A. this weekend with a 96-mph heater thrown by the Dodgers' Brad Penny.

Dude. Ow.

Luckily he's okay.

(Wait, is that Paris Hilton standing in the right-hand corner, arms akimbo? "What's going on? Are we midway through the seventh already?")

TODAY'S LINKS!

• Hill's doing her dead-level best to draw a connection between Bush 2000 and Obama '08. She says it's iffy to elect an untested candidate based solely on compelling rhetoric ("I'm a compassionate conservative" vs "Yes we can!"). True that. In all fairness, Clinton '92 wasn't much different, and it's no secret she thinks that was a pretty good eight years overall.
• Common sense for greening out. It doesn't have to be shi-shi. In fact, it probably shouldn't be.
• It's Sackcloth Day in the Magic City! Boutwell Auditorium. Six p.m. Be there or be...a hopeless, unrepentent sinner!
• Magic City Art Connection starts today. Everybody loves a festival...and it's right across the street from Mayor Larry's Sackcloth Extravaganza. That makes the corner of 8th Ave N and Short 20th St the universal epicenter of eclectic visual art and Old Testament fire-and-brimstone publicity stunts. Plus all the funnel cake you can eat! (On second thought, maybe Mayor Larry's right: these very well could be the endtimes...)

AND I LOOKED, AND BEHOLD A PALE HORSE...

Spent much of the morning on my maiden voyage to a cardiologist's office. (Palpitations.) The first of what will likely be many such visits in due time, given my family's checkered cardio-pulminary history.

This particular engagement first required me to navigate a parking deck teeming with old people cleverly disguised as licensed drivers. (In the Glass Half Full Department, I picked up a great new strategy to use when facing any number of daunting driving conundrums: simply stop the car wherever you are and don't move. Ever. The world will reroute itself in relationship to you, even if you choose to obstruct one of the darker and more narrow sections of its bowel.)

I can hear the catcalls now. "Fie on you, whippersnapper. You'll be old someday too. Then who gets the last laugh?"

Touche. In fact, the prospect of my own diminishing vitality smacked me in the face the entire time I shuffled, semi-aimless, around the mammoth Kirklin Clinic, which could best be described as an enormous mall of infirmity. People of all shapes and sizes, ages and creeds, being wheeled, stretchered, cajoled and otherwise herded into the football-field sized waiting areas at each of the ominously named pods. Nuclear Cardiology. CT Scan. Boils, Plagues, and Leprosy.

Most interesting to me were those accompanying the patients. Mostly middle-aged sons and daughters. A few spouses. The vast majority of them sporting the same vaguely pained expressions of dutiful resignation. It was tough to avoid feeling like I was on some sort of cruise ship of the damned.

And then, when it was all over, I couldn't find my car. Poetic justice? Portent of doom? Simply a case of "When in Rome..." vicarious dementia? Time will tell.

Life Lesson #37856: Who gets the last laugh? Um, well, if two hours at the Kirklin Clinic is any indication, the answer is pretty much nobody.

OUR MACRO'S OUT OF WHACK(RO)

Perhaps an entry later today re: the Keystone Caper unleashed last night, but first this in today's WaPo by business columnist Steven Pearlstein. Echoing the alarm sounded by Kevin Phillips in his new book, Bad Money, Pearlstein argues that the current economic downturn is less the result of a few mistakes by the finance and mortgage industries and more about a fundamental problem with the way money works in this country.

Simply put, we have created a culture that "requires" us to live beyond our means. According to Pearlstein, not even Americans can afford the opulent lifestyle (by the rest of the world's standards) that is the object of the world's envy and occasional scorn. Maybe that's not news to many folks. The real problem is our financial systems rely on us living beyond our means, racking up debt and speculative investments. Money making more money. When we can't do it anymore, the whole thing comes crashing down. The proverbial house-o-cards.

And here's the real takeaway: Both Phillips and Pearlstein think a significant, long-term reduction in living standard is unavoidable for most Americans. Thus, the current economic squeeze isn't a blip as far as they're concerned. It's the beginning of a fundamental shift in the way most Americans live their lives.

TODAY'S LINKS!

• E.J. Dionne writes about the different faces of Barack Obama in today's WaPo.
• How about this from Mother Jones about the guy who started Match.com. (He's trying to figure out how to cash in on solar power now, but the most interesting part of the article comes along in paragraph five when it talks about how much he paid somebody to find him a wife.)
• The Lama's in Ann Arbor.
• Russell at Greencup Books is trying to put some Ethiopian guy through college and needs your help!
• Malcolm Gladwell knows what we can learn from spaghetti sauce (and, apparently, Steven Wright's hair).

GRASS AND VERSE...SANS THE GOOD GRAY POET

Today I cut the grass. In celebration of that time-honored ritual of good old fashioned American homeownership (okay, I suppose they cut grass elsewhere in the world, too), I thought I'd offer up two poems about grass from two of America's most celebrated dead poets. Neither of whom is named Walt Whitman.

Grass

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this? Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.

--Carl Sandburg

***

The Grass so little has to do—
A Sphere of simple Green—
With only Butterflies to brood,
And Bees to entertain—

And stir all day to pretty Tunes
The Breezes fetch along—
And hold the Sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything—

And thread the Dews, all night, like Pearls—
And make itself so fine,—
A Duchess were too common
For such a noticing—

And even when it dies—to pass
In Odors so divine—
Like Lowly spices, lain to sleep—
Or Spikenards, perishing—

And then, in Sovereign Barns to dwell—
And dream the Days away,
The Grass so little has to do
I wish I were a Hay—

--Emily Dickinson

IF YOU NEEDED A HINT THAT MITT ROMNEY HASN'T GIVEN UP HIS PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE DREAMS...

He's gone and made up a self-deprecating Lettermanesque Top Ten list regarding why he dropped out of the '08 race. Yuk-yuk. Or just plain yuck.

A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS: THE FIX (AND WONKY PRAGMATISM)

First of all, props to Chris Cillizza and his WaPo blog, "The Fix." It's smart, informative, and exceedingly reasonable. Ol' Chris -- as the cheesesteak shot to the left would seem to indicate -- is a mensch who doesn't take himself too seriously. He offers his own analysis in measured doses but when he does he's usually right. Case in point, he says the most recent Dem debate brought the choice into focus: wonky pragmatism versus we-can-do-better idealism.

A pull quote:

*The choice between the candidates crystallized tonight. It is not, fundamentally, a choice about issues or even ideology -- it is a choice about approach. Obama is an idealist, using nearly every question to appeal to the better angels in people; Obama sees the world as he wants it to be and believes he can make it. Clinton, on the other hand, is an unapologetic pragmatist; she has been through the wringer that is national politics before and knows how to play the game.

Say what you want about President Bush, he has (to paraphrase Cillizza) seen the world as he wants it to be and believed he could make it. That worldview turned out to be myopic at best, hallucinatory at worst, and he has not been able to bring it to fruition largely because so few people at home and abroad have seen things his way.

Senator Obama's worldview is, I feel sure, a lot more like mine than President Bush's has been. His version of idealism is, then, one that I "can believe in." But so was Bill Clinton's when he stumbled through his first two years as President trying to reinvent government and, with it, the country's social contract. My appetite for stumbles isn't really there these days.

I'm on the record as favoring unapologetic pragmatism because I think it's been a while since our government has used that guiding principle. The reason unapologetic pragmatism doesn't fire most people up is that it almost necessarily involves kicking the can down the road. On a case-by-case basis, it rarely solves big problems once and for all.

Folks are in the mood for some big problems to be solved. Understandably so. But government doesn't do that so well. Allow me a sports analogy: Government works best as a referee, not as a coach or (gulp) a player. A referee is not concerned about the game's outcome, per se. A referee is concerned with the fundamental conditions under which the game is played.

Right now, a brawl has broken out on the court, both benches have cleared, and it's threatening to spill into the stands. We desperately need somebody to jump into the fray, not worry about whether she/he catches an elbow or two in the head, and get things back under control so we can resume the game in some semblance of order. That will take a brave person who knows the rules and isn't afraid to ruffle a few feathers -- or to look bad in doing it.

Is Senator Obama that sort of person right now? Probably not. Can he be that sort of person? Yeah, probably. He's certainly smart enough. The question is how long will it take him to learn and can he do it on the job? We may very well get a chance to cross our fingers, muster up all our audacious hopes, and find out.

THE MAYOR LARRY FILE: SACKCLOTHS FOR EVERYBODY!

I grew up in the shadows of the Marion Barry era--well, ONE of the Marion Barry eras. Except I thought his name was Maremarionbarry because that's how they always referred to him on the news. Fun times. Turns out these are equally fun times in the 'Ham for Mayor-watching. How fun? How about buying 2000 burlap sacks for community leaders to wear at an upcoming conference dealing with area crime? The dapper fella above has done just that.

Magic City Mayor Larry Langford says it's all there in the Bible: wearing a sackcloth every now again is a great way to foment humility and godfear. And what about that pesky separation of church and state? Langford says a pox on your house with that mess. He's quoted in this week's Birmingham Weekly thusly:

“The Constitution of the United States calls for a separation of church and state—it never said anything about a separation of church from state,” Langford said during the council meeting. “You don’t wanna pray? Fine. Just get your evil self away from me."

That's right. Mayor of the people. By the people. For the people. Just as long as you're not, you know, evil or anything. And that's fine too--if you'll kindly just stand back at arm's length or so.

A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS: OATMEAL

1 c. water. 1/2 c. old fashioned oats. 7 bite-sized prunes. Put prunes in water and boil. Add oats, cover, and reduce heat. Leave covered and simmer, unstirred, until oats soften and fully absorb the water. In a bowl, break a small handful of walnuts. Add oatmeal and stewed prunes. Brown sugar and cinnamon to taste.

WILL YOU PLEASE NOMINATE SOMEBODY ALREADY?

All I'll say about Bittergate is that it's pretty comical to have three U.S. senators -- who've been educated at the Naval Academy, Wellesley, Columbia, Yale Law, and Harvard Law -- arguing over who's elitist and who's not. The answer is quite simple: they're all ENORMOUS elitists. Name me a frickin' president who hasn't been. In fact, we've got one in there now who says he's anti-elitist. Trouble with that is A) he's pretty much made a mess of everything and B) oh yeah, he went to Yale and Harvard too.

This is stupid. Move on. Dot org.

BUY MARTONE

Michael Martone has a new book out: Racing in Place. Lest ye (of little faith) were worried that Martone's recent appearance in Esquire would portend a shift to the glittering world of mainstream fiction, Racing in Place is a Whitman's Sampler of "collages, fragments, postcards, ruins." Which is to say that, in true Martonian fashion, this book defies classification. It's snippets of wisdom, nostalgia, story, history, personal mythography. Plus there's a cool little dirigible on the cover (see top row of checkerboard, third square from the right)! Check it out...

LET'S GO CAPS!

So I guess hockey is alive and well in DC. As a youth, I suffered through many a playoff heartbreak with the Cappies, so it's nice to know they now employ hockey's version of Elvis. You know, with fewer teeth. And a Russian accent. And $124 mil over the next thirteen years. Thank heavens for the red-white-and-blue unis, too. Those blue-and-gold things were pretty awful.

Of course, overshadowing the Caps 5-4 triumph over their former Patrick Division nemesis, the Philadelphia Flyers, is the fate of poor Patrick Thoreson's manparts. In what seems to be a trend of horrorshow injuries this year in the NHL, Thoreson was hit in the groin by a Mike Green slapshot in the third period and it now appears that (gulp) he may have to have a testicle removed. Here's the money quote from a Sporting News article about the incident:

Thoresen's injury and the referees' decision to allow play to continue while he rolled around in pain on the ice overshadowed the stinging loss.

Green scored the game-tying goal while Thoresen was curled up in a fetal position.

"I don't know where you cross the line," Holmgren said. "It isn't like he was hit in the face."

Right you are, Mr. Holmgren. It's not like that at all. It's like he was hit in the testicles. With a piece of vulcanized rubber traveling over 100 mph. Stinging loss, indeed.