Category: News

I surfed around this morning looking for reactions from some of my California friends to last night’s debate among gubernatorial candidates, but found none. I have to wonder if they’ll even vote. Even though I’m far from the action, I had to tune in to watch, since it’s Arnold’s only scheduled faceoff with his opponents. For the most part, it wasn’t much of a real debate.

The only fireworks were between Arianna Huffington and Arnold. She rightly went after him from the beginning, sensing that he’s really just an empty suit. He was unimpressive. He carped on and on about the current government, and spouted a few generic platitudes (“we need to fix the economy”, “we need to attract more business”, “we need to take care of kids”) but had absolutely no solutions. I hope I’m not the only one who can see that.

I was most impressed with Green Party candidate Peter Camejo, who never even got to talk about environmental issues. Far from being a one-issue, “hippy” party, the Greens actually had some sensible positions on most issues. Only his lack of government experience would really hold him back. And although I disagree with almost all of his positions, Republican Tom McClintock was equally impressive. He held clear positions and articulated them carefully, without attacking anyone. I think he’s in the race because he’s annoyed that Arnold isn’t a “real” candidate. I respect his integrity.

So, although Gary Coleman wasn’t there, I found the debate interesting, though a real debate format would have been better (ie. no foreknowledge of the questions, letting each candidate state his/her position and then face rebuttals from the other candidates). Good luck, Californians!

The phenomenon of “flash mobs” has gone mainstream, a mere 48 days after appearing on Consolation Champs (after first appearing on BoingBoing). There are even some web sites dedicated to it.

We’ve got SARS breaking out again in Toronto, mad-cow disease out west, West Nile virus threatening this summer, and to top it off, two American teams called the Ducks and the Devils are battling it out in the Stanley Cup finals. Haven’t we been through enough already?

The timing might be the most remarkable thing in this remarkable tale of New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, who fabricated many details of his stories. Strangely enough, I watched a profile on 60 Minutes last night of Stephen Glass, the reporter for the New Republic who also fabricated most of his stories. Glass has a new “novel” out called The Fabulist, and after five years of therapy, seems to be trying to make amends. Of course, none of his colleagues trust him…

UPDATE: I’ve also become aware of the story of Janet Cooke, a Washington Post reporter who actually won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 for “Jimmy’s World,” a story about an 8-year old heroin addict. Two days after winning the prize, she admitted that Jimmy was fictional, a “composite” of other child addicts. She returned the prize, resigned, and faded into obscurity.

Front page of the National Post today: Rebecca Eckler Is Pregnant

Now, for those not in the know, Rebecca Eckler is someone who has built her entire journalistic career around the type of writing that should have been confined to a weblog. I have nothing against her personally. In fact, I’m a little envious that I can’t get a column for a national newspaper talking about my feelings about relationships, what clothes and shoes I find jaunty, and where I had drinks last weekend. The cynical me wonders if the whole pregnancy thing is just a way for her to get material for another nine months plus worth of columns.