February 2005 – Page 2 – Lunar Obverse

Goodbye, Dr. Gonzo

General

Awful. Awful.

Hunter S. Thompson has apparently shot himself tonight.

One of the world’s best journalists is dead.

I’m doing a couple of shots of tequila in his memory.

Waiting for (after) the weekend

General

I have a Whoo-HOO!! and a complaint.

My iPod Shuffle, that I ordered weeks ago, shipped out today. Yay! I’ll get it next week. Finally…

However, ghoddammit, I paid for overnight shipping. And I feel like I paid that extra amount for nothing. It’s shipping on a Saturday? A Saturday of a three-day weekend, no less. I won’t be at work on Monday, nobody will, which means I’ll have to wait for it until Tuesday. Which means my “overnight” shipping will take four calendar days.

Also, still no word on my Mac Mini… waiting… waiting…

That’s not right: what does denial mean, anyway?

Politics

Thought about posting this on the political blog but decided it was just a bit too theoretical so I’ll post it here. Just some thoughts on the media and how that is different than journalism. A small point. This idea was cut from my not-yet-posted review of “All The President’s Men” because it’s already running pretty long.

It concerns how standards have slipped in what, exactly, constitutes a denial.

It’s something that struck me as I was reading Woodward and Bernstein’s account of how they went about investigating. They would talk to some sources, put together a story based on those sources, many of whom, because of the seriousness of what they were talking about, wanted to be anonymous. And rightfully so; the sources knew the stakes in the game they were playing, and a lot of them knew that they were accusing the most powerful men in the country, and possibly the world, of very damaging things.

And, in the course of reporting these things, the reporters would contact the accused person and ask for a statement, which they would include in the story. And, time and time again, after hearing the vague “statements” that the accused would offer, Woodward or Bernstein would conclude, “That’s not a denial” and then write into the story something like: “When asked for a statement, Mr. Accused did not deny the allegations”.

And it piqued my interest. Certainly what the text said sounded like a denial to me. So I had to figure out what was missing.

And what was missing from the non-denial denials was… facts. Something that could be checked out. Something, anything, that would directly counter the statements made.

Let me give you an example. Say there’s a reporter doing a story on me, and she’s dug up some source somewhere that claims that, during Labor Day weekend last year, I was in New Orleans with some redhead who was married to someone else. And the reporter, before printing this allegation, called me up to ask for a statement. After due consideration, I provide the following statement:

I did not travel to New Orleans, or anywhere, with a married woman.

Sounds like a denial, right? But what if I did spend Labor Day weekend with a woman? But we took separate planes? And it wasn’t in New Orleans? And she wasn’t really married, just dating someone, but it was kept secret from her boyfriend? My statement is true, as far as it goes, and it certainly sounds like a denial, I mean, it’s emphatic enough, but, see, it’s not, really.

In order to counter the allegations I need to provide some backup, not a qualified statement. I would want to provide some documentation, like a plane ticket to Las Vegas, perhaps. Maybe some witnesses, or a picture of me riding the roller-coaster at New York, New York, things like that. Of course, if those pictures or witnesses showed me with the woman in question, then I’m sunk. But that’s part of the problem; denials of the facts almost always have flaws. They don’t hold up.

Nowadays, however, the media simply accepts and prints the denials they receive from targets of their investigations without digging into the facts of the matter. They rarely follow up the request for a statement with more investigation. They just print the “he said/she said” and call it fair and balanced. Somewhere along the line, they’ve lost their courage to dig deeper.

And that’s part of the difference between journalism, and the media. Journalists dig; the media simply records and reports.

The loss is gianormous.

Please Mr. DJ

General

John the Morning DJ over at KEXP, sends out an email every day after his on-air duties are over. The bulk of it lists what he’s played that day. Plus he includes emails from listeners, information about upcoming shows, things like that. It’s an interesting read.

He also lists some of his favorite music. Here’s two of the lists:

============================================
JOHN’S FAVORITE SONGS EVER-AN OPINIONATED WORK IN PROGRESS
============================================

1.Pixies “Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)”
2.Jesus and Mary Chain “Just Like Honey”
3.Joy Division “Love Will Tear Us Apart”
4. Sugar “Hoover Dam”
5. Stone Roses “I Wanna Be Adored”
6.Echo and the Bunnymen “The Killing Moon”
7. Ride “Vapor Trail”
8. The Clash “Police and Thieves”
9. Jeff Buckley “Hallelujah”
10 Radiohead “Let Down”

============================================
JOHN’S EVEN MORE COMPLICATED LIST OF MUST HAVE FAVORITE ALBUMS
============================================

1.Pixies “Surfer Rosa”
2.Radiohead “OK Computer”
3.Nirvana “Nevermind”
4.Sugar “Copper Blue”
5.Pixies “Come On Pilgrim”
6. Massive Attack “Mezzanine”
7. Chemical Brothers “Exit Planet Dust”
8. My Bloody Valentine “Loveless”
9 DJ Shadow “Endtroducing”
10. The Clash “London Calling”
11. U2 “Achtung Baby”
12. The Cure “Disintegration”
13. U2 “Joshua Tree”
14. Jesus and Mary Chain “Darklands”
15. Depeche Mode “Violator”
16. Jesus and Mary Chain “Psychocandy”
17. Radiohead “Kid A”
18. Pixies “Doolittle”
19. Radiohead “The Bends”
20. Jeff Buckley “Grace”
21. Smashing Pumpkins “Gish”
22. Pearl Jam “Ten”
23. Jane’s Addiction “Ritual de la Habitual”
24. Morcheeba “Big Calm”
25. Underworld “Dubnobasswithmyheadman”
26. Unkle “Psyence Fiction”

My emphasis added

So, among all his other favorite music, he likes Radiohead. That’s a good thing.

…and yet, if he likes Radiohead so much, why, why, WHY hasn’t he played any Radiohead at all this week???

I sent him an email pointing this out, and as of 8:59 AM today, he has corrected that error.

Run like a rock star

General

Ran like a rock star tonight.

At the gym (of course), did a warmup mile at a slow pace (around a 10:55 pace; don’t really know, just set the speed at 5.5 MPH), then stopped, stretched a bit, and then turned up the speed to 6.3 MPH, or around a 9:31 pace, and just kept going for 2 miles, then slowed back down to the warmup/cooldown pace for another mile. Don’t know if I could have kept going at the faster pace but I was impressed at the total mileage. Yay, me!

I’m thinking of doing some hills tomorrow night. Or maybe just an easy 2 1/2 to 3 miles. Not sure. Probably should go easy since today was basically my long run for the week.’

Was soooo tempted to celebrate by going out to eat but came home and had some frozen pasta-and-chicken thing. Oh, well. Saving money is glamorous, right?

Home cooking

General

This week I’ve made a resolution to eat every meal at home. No going out to eat for me. It was sink-or-swim time. I was going to determine, once and for all, just how much money I can save by preparing my own groceries.

I’m doing OK so far. Well, I have bought some Diet Pepsis this week (and I’m on a winning streak when it comes to the Pepsi/iTunes contest, too; it’s real easy to win when you can read the winning codes through the bottle) and I met a friend for coffee today and bought a delicious soy chai latte. Besides those (oh, and the Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate bar I bought) I’m perfect for eating meals I prepared.

Last night, I wanted to have some ramen (I didn’t say I was learning to prepare gourmet meals) but wanted some protein to go with all those carbs. Digging around in the back of my cupboard, I found a couple of cans of chicken, bought probably a year ago, back when I had my last “save money/eat at home” kick). Cans of chicken don’t go bad, do they? I looked all over for an “expiration date” but, finding none, I figured it was good to eat. I mean, the can wasn’t bulging with botulism or anything, there’s no holes or leaks, so it’s good, right?

But when I opened one… well… it smelled bad. Even I could tell that something wasn’t right. Ew. It all looked fine. It was the color I expected, not green or red or anything but normal white-meat chicken colored. I couldn’t quite bring myself to taste it, though.

So I called Smacky over. Set it on the floor. It’s chicken, right? And he’s not going to eat something that’s obviously bad for him (I realize that’s a dumb thing to think. I realize that now), right?

He sniffed at it for a second, then jerked his head away like it smelled… well… worse than his normal food, which smells horrible to me.

That clinched it. If it smells too bad for even Smacky to turn it down… it ain’t goin’ in my belly.

Tempo means rythym

exercise

Quick lunchtime update:

I know, the silence this week has been deafening. Been working on a couple of longer posts, one for here (musings about the illusion of mind and body being separate; maybe a bit dry but it’s a topic on my mindbody lately, especially considering the strange dreams I’ve been having) and one for the political blog (a review of “All The President’s Men” that’s turning into a fairly long critique).

So, hang in there and I’ll be back. I’ve also been slowly working on the site re-design but I don’t want to jinx myself by announcing anything yet.

Also the constant sleep interrupted by nightmares kinda take a toll.

I’m going running tonight and will more than likely post about that, too. Funny: I keep reading in Runner’s World about how beginners shouldn’t start “speed work” until they’ve been doing “tempo runs” for a while. For instance, a recent article says that a runner should be comfortable running for 45 minutes at a stretch before beginning speed work.

I thought I understood what “tempo running” was — I thought it was mixed fast and slow running. Makes some sense, right? “Tempo” is a synonym of “rhythm”…

But this week I decided to actually go looking for a definition; and it turns out that a “tempo run” is just sustained running at around what I would run in a race, sandwiched between shorter, easier, warm-up runs. That’s, um, what I’ve already been doing, although I haven’t been pushing myself for more than 30 minutes at a time. That’s a bit difficult (but not impossible) because there’s time limits on the treadmills and it’s been too freakin’ cold to go running much outside lately. At any rate, I’m going to to try (availability of treadmills being the primary factor) tonight to do a 35-minute “tempo run”.

Month: February 2005

Goodbye, Dr. Gonzo

Waiting for (after) the weekend

That’s not right: what does denial mean, anyway?

Please Mr. DJ

Run like a rock star

Home cooking

Tempo means rythym

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