The guys at Pundit Review Radio have interviewed some fantastic bloggers recently, including Hugh Hewitt, Power Line‘s Scott Johnson, Dean Esmay, Bill Ardolino from INDC Journal, Jeff Goldstein from Protein Wisdom, and many others. On July 3, they are making their first serious misstep: they are going to have yours truly on the show.
The guys at Pundit Review have really hit the big time. Their show broadcasts Sundays at 9 p.m. EDT, at WRKO, a station with 50,000 watts of power. My friend in Framingham and my uncle in Cape Cod ought to be able to tune in. If you are in the Boston area, you should tune in too. (Are there any Patterico readers from Boston? I know one is named “Bostonian” . . .)
Of course, anyone can listen via streaming audio on the WRKO web site — and the show will be archived, so my foolish statements will live forever on the Web.
This appears to be the Pundit Review guys’ first significant lapse in judgment. I thank them for the opportunity. I hope it doesn’t cost them their contract . . .
The Redwood Room, a downtown landmark near Broadway and 2d Street, is closing tomorrow, Kevin Roderick reports.
I spent many a happy lunch there with my friend Abe from the D.A.’s office. I almost always got the garlic salmon special. Abe has been transferred from downtown, but I’d always hoped that we’d get the chance to return to the Redwood Room for a nostalgic lunch. Now we won’t get that chance.
Everything changes.
Recently I posted that Michael Schiavo had used Terri Schiavo’s gravestone to take a parting shot at her parents — one of the most shameless acts of petty, self-absorbed nastiness in recent memory. (See here for more details.)
Michael Schiavo defenders have made different arguments. Some have questioned whether he really meant to insult the Schindlers. Others have admitted that, of course, he did — but have argued that, while that’s regrettable, it’s perhaps understandable given all the supposed slanders the guy has had to endure.
And then there’s a third opinion, which as far as I can tell, is held by one guy on the Web, and one guy alone. This fellow actually argues that it’s appropriate for Michael Schiavo to use his ex-wife’s tombstone to exact revenge upon his in-laws:
The Schindlers have misbehaved and they need to be punished.
Words cannot describe my contempt for someone who actively approves of using someone else’s gravestone to psychologically punish that person’s parents. But some words come pretty close, and they have been spoken by other respected bloggers, whom I’ll allow to speak for me:
Dean Esmay, Dean Esmay again, and Bill from INDC Journal (see bottom of comment thread).
UPDATE: In case anyone is wondering why I might experience schadenfreude in seeing this guy’s true character gradually revealed to bloggers whom I respect, read this post.
I don’t really see any point in leaving comments open on this.
UPDATE x2: I’ve removed the quotes from these bloggers from the post. You can go read them yourself if you want to.
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Another reason I am tired today: our daughter Lauren lost her first tooth at school yesterday. And I do mean “lost” — it came out when she was eating, so she held onto it. A bit later, she was looking at it, and our son came over and hit it out of her hand, and she lost it. When I picked them up, I looked for it for about 20 minutes, with no luck.
So, Lauren dictated and signed the following note to the Tooth Fairy:
Dear Tooth Fairy,
I lost my tooth at school in the book area. Please, please believe us. We’re sorry we couldn’t leave the tooth for you. We’re sorry if you knew. We just wrote this in case you didn’t know.
Love, Lauren
The note appears to have worked. The Tooth Fairy, who was unable to pay a visit before Lauren’s parents’ bedtime (due to Lauren being too excited and staying awake), came sometime in the middle of the night. I have it on good authority that it was exactly 3 a.m. Which, together with the cat that enjoys jumping on my pillow, might explain why I’m so tired today.
One of our two cats has developed a habit of getting on our bed by jumping onto my pillow. Usually between 3 and 5 a.m., and usually more than once. As you might imagine, this makes me jolt awake each time it happens.
I am looking into my legal options.
Jeff Jarvis has some harsh words for L.A. Times editors regarding the wikitorial:
The LA Times didn’t understand what it was doing and made three criticial mistakes:
1. Collaboration vs. argument — I said this from the start: They didn’t get that wikis are a collaborative medium where, even when people disagree, they try to find common ground, knowing there can be only one outcome, or else the wiki will, by its very nature, fail. This is why I suggested having two wikis, instead — one pro, one con and let the best wiki win — and Jimbo Wales was starting to do that… but the trolls took over the forest first.
2. Care and feeding — All communities need attention. The Times should have gone to Jimbo and, he said today, he would have had a few good Wikipedians watch over their foray. You don’t build a town without cops. You don’t build a community site — a town online — without a clean-up crew, either. He also would have explained how to use wikis, since he knows. But the paper thought they knew best and this leads to be biggest mistake:
3. Newspaper ego — Here is the Times’ worst mistake and its most predictable: They think everything is about them. I’ve sat in meetings with newspaper editors who earnestly think that the best use of internet interactivity is to let the people talk about what they have written, to discuss them, to keep them in the spotlight they built for themselves. There is no bigger institutional ego than a newspaper’s. Presidents and popes get humbled more often than editors. Well, at least they used to.
No, guys, the best use of a wiki would have been to have the public create wikis to share their knowledge and viewpoints with you. I don’t know what the big issues are in LA, but here in New York, it might work better just to open the gates to watch people create pro and con wikis on the Olympics and a new Manhattan stadium and 10 ways to improve the schools….
Good points all. But I think Jarvis’s bottom line is still the same as mine — no matter the quibbles we may have with the way the paper chose to interact, this is still a positive first step that should continue:
Let me be clear: I hope the LA Times gets back on the bike and rides again. I salute them for the effort; the heart is in the right place. But I would hate to see one misstep cancel the race … for the LA Times and for other newspapers, all of whom need to learn how to listen.
I agree wholeheartedly.
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