Achenblog

Abe Pollin

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:45:18 -0500

[Bulletin, just fyi: Washington Post closing all national bureaus. I remember when we had Booth in Miami, Maraniss in Austin, gobs of people in New York, someone in Chicago, Denver, and three people in Los Angeles, including a Style writer.] Last week, with Lebron visiting, I wandered down to the Verizon Center area to feed off some of the energy. There was no need to go to the game itself, though it was a good one, up there in the corner of an Irish pub. The neighborhood itself is an astonishing development: Whether you call it Chinatown, or Gallery Place, it's Washington's answer to Times Square, a place that throbs with energy on almost any night of the week, all year long. And that's thanks to Abe Pollin, the owner of the Wizards. Pollin died today at 85. He was, from what I've read, one of the great owners

Best thing since sliced bread [updated]

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:17:03 -0500

This morning I overhead someone talk about "the best thing since sliced bread." But I missed hearing about the thing that was the object of her superlative. I felt my innards congeal with curiosity, and when it didn't pass, I realized I needed to think this through. When did they invent sliced bread? Before or after canned beer? And why is sliced bread so amazing? Sure, sliced bread is extremely convenient when you've got exactly 30 seconds to make the PB&J for the critter who has to run out the door to catch the bus in the morning, but should it really be the standard by which measure innovation? I'm just wondering if the saying really should be something more along the lines of "The best thing since, and perhaps even encompassing the invention of, sliced bread." Imprecision in speech is a form of evil. In any case, several

The next great pundit

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:05:59 -0500

I've got to go with Kevin Huffman in this pundit contest, even while noting, with clenched jaw, face twisted in a death's-head grimace, that both of the contestants have exposed their weaknesses. (You can cast your vote until 8 p.m.) Huffman's column has Mobius-strip reasoning that makes the reader work too hard. Once again he has polyurethaned his prose with satire and snark. It's too clever by half, or maybe three-quarters -- or perhaps I just haven't woken up yet. In general, you don't want the main reaction of your readers to be, "What is he saying????" But thematically the column works, as it jabs the conservatives for their perverse rejection ("death panels!") of evidence-based, results-oriented medical treatment. Of course, I'm pretty sure that the liberal Democrats and administration officials were equally reluctant last week to embrace the scientific recommendations for fewer cancer screenings. The simple fact is that

Featured Advertiser

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:05:59 -0500

ClimateGate: Waiting for vegetarian overlord response

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:10:43 -0500

You may have read about the computer hackers who stole years of emails that show climate scientists being nasty and cranky (for example, "Next time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I'll be tempted to beat the crap out of him") and, if you believe the global-warming-deniers, manipulating the climate data. This is going viral on the web, At RealClimate, some of those scientists respond: More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to 'get rid of the MWP', no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no 'marching orders' from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though. My initial glance at the news

Mommy's midlife crisis

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:28:30 -0500

In my dawn-patrol ritual on the back porch, the meditative moment, the contemplative pre-electronic communing with the planet in its optimistic turn toward our star, I often find myself flooded with yearning, with need, with want, with -- dare I say the word -- desire. So it was this morning as I surveyed my estate. I really, really, really wanted to cut back the crape myrtle. [Regulars here, on seeing the word "yearning," instantly thought: he's going to make a joke about wanting a new lawn mower. But I'm not so predictable!!] Being a man, particularly one past that conquer-the-world phase, is extraordinarily easy. We prune back our ambitions until they are mere goals, and then trim them some more until we have just a severe little topiary shrub shaped strikingly like the Lombardi Trophy. We learn to putter, and dither. We eyeball our stocks and gradually shift the money

Personal foul, 15 yards for Newsweek, Pinker [Updated]

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:31:48 -0500

First Newsweek had that ridiculous cover "In Search of Aliens" a few months back, a wild exaggeration of a story about the Kepler mission to find Earthlike worlds. Then Newsweek had a cover asking if your baby is racist. Now we have the Sarah Palin cover, using a sexy photo taken for Runner's World. Jon Meacham defends the decision: "We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do," Meacham said. "We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard." Ain't nothin' gender-neutral about Sarah Palin. Her sex appeal is part of the package. But that's all the more reason to be sensitive to the perils of over-leveraging that aspect of her celebrity. Newsweek over-leveraged. In a single

Erosion Roundup

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:15:03 -0500

The recent Nor'easter pounded the tar out of the Delmarva peninsula. See these pictures of Chincoteague. I'm worried about my campground at the north end of Assateague and wondering how the ponies rode out the storm. Storms regularly breach the berm (I guess you'd call it a dune except it's industrially created) that runs down the island, and the campground gets flooded, but this was no ordinary storm, lasting as it did for four days. Clearly -- obviously -- irrefutably -- I need to head to the beach today to check out the damage and blog about it, which really should only take five or six days of reporting. Also I should see how the Outer Banks handled it. And Bermuda. And the Amalfi Coast. -- Weingarten was just as mean as I was in that pundit contest that dot.com is running. Gene hates the tendency to be inoffensive and

Obama in Shanghai

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:12:05 -0500

Increasingly I want to take a sledgehammer to my laptop. It's following me, nagging me, pestering me, forcing me to pay attention to it when I really ought to be doing something healthier, like texting. I know my laptop better than I know my own children. Yesterday I was down by the river in the morning, the four-day storm had broken, the air was sparkling, and I found myself alone in what could plausibly pass for wilderness but for the rusty camp grill and the old fire ring and the two picnic tables -- and the laptop. The aircard works out there. Communed with nature, fired off some emails. Who among us has not sniffed around a woodsy park in search of an outlet? You know you have it bad when you check for a socket in the port-a-john. The other problem with the laptop is that it is a

Over the moon

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 08:02:15 -0500

I still feel bad that I said mean things about those pundit contestants simply because some of their stuff was so dreadful. The truth, of course, is that I'm jealous, because they're young and have a future and can become America's Next Great Pundit, and I'm destined to cover night cops in Gaithersburg. Resentment is becoming my foundational emotion. As I get older I become more and more aware of having grown up on a dirt road, a loose end in a broken family. Maybe it's because my own kids buy name-brand everything and seem to think they are to the manor born. (Or is it manner. Surely it's manor. At least it used to be manor back in my day.) My grouchiness extends to water discoveries in the solar system. I want the liquid. I don't care so much about ice and vapor. When scientists say the moon

Obama as commander

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:28:51 -0500

Here's the essay I typed up yesterday on Obama as commander in chief. It's just a quick take on the man and the moment, with an assist from some military historians. [Update: I am going to steer clear of the comments on the story, but Doug Feaver has done a great job sifting through them for his dot.comments blog.] My story: War and tragedy are putting President Obama through the most wrenching period of his young administration. Visibly thinner, admittedly skipping meals, he is learning every day the challenges of a wartime presidency. Health-care reform, climate-change legislation, the broken economy -- all are cerebral exercises compared with the grim responsibility of being the commander in chief. Two weeks ago, Obama flew to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for a surprise middle-of-the-night salute to the fallen as their bodies were unloaded from a military transport plane. He met with

Meanest man in the world

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:51:15 -0500

Got immersed in a day story and haven't had a chance to see the bloggy-punditry today in the Next Great Pundit contest. But I did read all the stuff yesterday and wrote up a critique, after which I felt horrible, just reeking of meanness, or, if that's not a word, meanitude. Here it is (click to see the version with all the links): Kevin Huffman is funny, quirky and has mastered the vernacular style that is crucial to blogging. I liked his earlier columns, too. He needs to be careful not to pound the snark key too much, but it works in the Agassi item, with the nice "Let's cane him!" pivot. Bonus points for the graphic. Huffman has lots of potential as a blogger because readers will find it easy to wade into his stream of consciousness. Question is, will readers want to stay there? Here's a basic

When to drop a dime

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:03:54 -0500

To judge from Dana Priest's amazing story this morning, Fort Hood suspect Nidal Hasan telegraphed his actions. He took a medical seminar and turned it into a political rant. He did everything but put on scary background music -- shrieking violins, etc. It's as though he was daring his colleagues to drop a dime on him. [For younger readers: There used to be these things called "pay phones." You put a coin in a slot and were allowed to make a call. Long ago, a call cost a dime. This was when woolly mammoths roamed the Earth.] We all have moments when we have to decide whether to intervene in what seems to be a weird or dicey or peculiar situation. The street-corner argument between two strangers that's getting louder and louder -- is that about to get out of control? The friend who's depressed -- will he snap out

'Government-run health care'

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:27:45 -0500

[Didn't I say, just last week, that someone should kick the computer that put Iowa at No. 1 in the nation? Yeah, they were number 1 until they ran into that perennial powerhouse Northwestern! Now we just need to do something about TCU -- whoever and whatever that is -- and the two computers that think Cincinnati is better than Alabama.] Note this line in the official Michael Steele, RNC reaction to the passage of health care bill in the House (after some world-class grandstanding and obstreperousness by our esteemed leaders): "Today with help from their liberal House allies, President Obama and Nancy Pelosi finally got what they have been creating behind closed doors these past months - a government-run health care experiment that will increase families' health care costs, increase the deficit, increase taxes on small businesses and the middle class, and cut Medicare." Never mind the throwaway

Crazy vs. fanatical

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:19:35 -0500

The Hasan story is still very murky: I'm struck by how little we know so far about what he may have been thinking and why he would have done what he is accused of. The demands of instant analysis are not always met by the supply of facts. The published facts are sketchy and contradictory (he seemed like a nice guy; no, wait, he seemed angry and weird). The discussion of possible motives has touched on two basic theories, what you might call psychological vs. ideological. Or maybe crazy vs. fanatical. See The Post story today,or Tom Gjelten's NPR report last night. Maybe this will all clear up. In the meantime, a couple of thoughts, in the category of just thinking out loud on a Saturday morning:

Another AchenBob Diavlog

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:54:17 -0500