But the real story is not how the news got it wrong—there’s been plenty of that since Monday. It’s how, mere hours later after telling a bullshit story, the news simply told a new story and expunged the previous one from its memory. Real-time accuracy isn’t always possible in journalism. But no one can call himself a journalist if he can’t acknowledge in the present what he got wrong in the past.
Gawker: Everybody Named the Wrong Boston Suspects Last Night and Promptly Forgot.
I’ll never forget how, many years ago, after another approach had failed to give relief, Matthew said ‘Dad, I know I’m going to heaven. Why can’t I just die and end this pain?’
Megachurch pastor and Christianity franchiser extraordinaire Rick Warren, recalling his 27-year-old son Matthew, who committed suicide Friday at the family’s home.
Yes, we’re supposed to be solemn and respectful at a moment of loss such as this. But judging from the *press statement Warren’s Saddleback Church put out about his son’s suicide and longstanding depression*, and speaking as a past sufferer of existential depression, there seems to be no acknowledgment on Rick’s part that maybe, just maybe, his lifelong evangelism promoting a Christian cosmological narrative of love and everlasting life, juxtaposed with a clear inability to connect with his son on the most basic of loving levels, might have further screwed Matthew up and made self-oblivion seem an attractive choice.
As evinced in the quote above. I hear a troubled young man asking for help squaring his upbringing and dogmatic beliefs with what he feels so acutely and painfully. I’m not sure what Rick feels, but given the context in which he offered this anecdote, it seems less like a mea culpa or an introspective “what-if” than a supremely craven impulse to deny any responsibility: “Oh, you know, he was a tortured soul with a death wish, what can you do, anyway he’s in a better place now.”
This, from a man made millionaire many times over for penning a book titled “The Purpose-Driven Life.”
Rick, I’m truly sorry for your loss. I truly wonder whether *you* are.
Did a Fashion-CEO Friend of Bill Clinton Give His Match.com Date Herpes?
Best use of stock photos evar of the day.
Anonymous Hacks North Korea’s Twitter, Prepares for Post-Nuclear Apocalyptic Landscape
Is this the sort of third-party intervention that could push North Korea’s brinksmanship into full war mode? Or should we have faith that a totalitarian nation that can’t secure its Twitter probably needs to MacGyver its ballistic missile guidance systems with half a potato and the innards of a smuggled Tamagotchi?
You say you don’t get how the whole offshore tax thing works in the first place? Take my hand.
Economic reforms in North Korea: boom by atomic bombs
(via)
America, Let’s Get Comfortable With Calling Murderous White Racist Bros Terrorists Again
…But despite the fact that it’s been a proven killing machine with a race fetish for nigh on half a century, the Aryan Brotherhood (the “Brand,” among people trying to sound cool) hasn’t quite gotten the heap of opprobrium from Americans that we reserve for Al Qaeda and women who defend birth control. Perhaps it’s because the Brand (#aryanbrotherhood) operates chiefly out of the US penal system, which is something akin to Vegas in the law-abiding American imagination: What goes on in supermax stays in supermax.
Perhaps it has to do with America’s general policy of giving angry white guys a mulligan, because freedom isn’t free, but is rather secured through the vigorous waving of Obama-monkey signs by gun-caressing mostly Anglo mostly male patriots who are constantly fighting the fascist government’s attempts to label them terrorists…
I’m doing some guest writing for Gawker this month.
Not the Onion. Not the Onion. Not the Onion. Not the Onion.
Not the Onion. Not the Onion. Not the Onion. Not the Onion.
Not the Onion. Not the Onion. Not the Onion. Not the Onion.
Anyone out there ever had oral sex with Ken Cuccinelli? If so, big story. If not, also big story.
Either Rick Scott is taking this “moderate makeover” thing a little too far, or he delegated his correspondence to the wrong intern.
In a form letter dated March 22, Florida’s conservative tea-party governor congratulated state Democratic Party chairwoman Alison Tant for making a local list of notable women…with surprisingly florid praise. “Your efforts are helping move our state in the right direction,” he told Florida’s progressive-in-chief, adding: ”It is my pleasure to extend best wishes to you for your continued success.”
See for yourself:
Now, a little more bipartisan chumminess would be a fantastic thing, but it’s a stretch to believe that Scott — he of the tea party paradiso, the drug-tested welfare recipients, the long voting lines, the cheap health care (for himself), the Trayvon debacle, the war on liberal arts — is pleased with the recent Democratic direction of his state.
More likely, there are 25 of these letters, one for each of Tallahassee’s “Women You Need to Know in 2013.”*
Which means Scott is simply guilty of not accounting for what goes on in his name… as when he ran a medical conglomerate implicated in the largest Medicare fraud case in US history. In that case, good news for Republicans: Rick Scott is not a traitor to the conservative cause. He’s just a poor manager.
That should look excellent on a bumper sticker in 2014.
—-
* Editorial note: There are, in fact, many more than 25 women worth knowing in Tallahassee.
(via)
Via Schorsch at Saint Petersblog:
Patrons of strip clubs won’t be able to make it rain with government assistance under a measure that got its first vote of support from state senators on Tuesday.
The Regulated Industries Committee approved with little discussion the proposal (SB 1048) by Sen. Andy Gardiner to prohibit electronic benefits (EBT) cards from being used at strip clubs, liquor stores and gambling establishments, including casinos, pari-mutuels and Internet cafes.
The House version (HB 701) has cleared two committees with little trouble and is set to go before Health and Human Services Committee on Thursday.
And exactly how many EBT cards pop at these dens of vice? Florida’s puritanical legislators have yet to say. Though it’s probably similar to the numbers of Florida welfare recipients who are doing drugs: very, very few.
“He has for sure got some pretty significant images.” That’s what Walton County Sheriff Mike Adkinson said of Lane Rees, 61, a GOP higher-up now charged with possession and transmission of child pornography.
Rees is a party committeeman, though the Republican Party of Florida appears to have purged him from its directory of leaders (an archived listing from last August listing Rees is here.) He also helped oversee the GOP’s state budget in 2011, and was appointed to serve on several policy panels by then-Gov. Jeb Bush and the Republican speaker of the Florida House. (A sparse user of Facebook, Rees excitedly updated his personal page in January 2011: “At Florida Inauguration for Governor Rick Scott, LT. Governor Jennifer Carroll and other members of the Cabinet — awesome time.”)
Rees until recently served as chairman of the board for the Foundation for Evangelism, which is associated with the United Methodist Church. (He continues to serve on the board.)
Just last month, Rees reportedly helped train other lay ministers at a retreat in Alabama. His lesson was titled “Living our Beliefs: The United Methodist Way.”
(h/t NW Florida Daily News)
Goodbye, Washington and awesome magazine job. Hello, South Florida and whatever comes next.
I know I’m doing this on April Fool’s Day, but never mind that bunk. I have a for-real announcement:
Come the end of this month, I will be leaving my full-time post as an editor for Mother Jones and returning to my native South Florida, so my newborn son can get to know his extended family as he grows up… and so I can see palm trees in December.
It’s a bittersweet transition, to be sure: MoJo and its leadership have been my family for more than a few years now. They saw potential in me when I felt less than brilliant; they gave me leeway and patience and license to chase government big-rigs through a nuclear plant in South Carolina. I’ve been able not just to watch MoJo’s rising influence in the national conversation: I was empowered to help make it happen. Expect to still see my byline over in MJ’s friendly confines… especially now that MoJo Sports is a thing.
What I jump into next, I don’t know. I plan to finish a PhD that I started some time back. You’ll be able to find my byline this spring and summer at the Columbia Journalism Review, where I’ll be the Florida-Georgia correspondent. Beyond that, I’ll be looking for any opportunity I can find to report, write, edit, tweet, Tumble, and generally rock the publishing world. (Suggestions are most welcome.)
Which means you’ll probably see a lot more of me around here, too. I’ve long neglected my personal Tumblr for MoJo’s, which will continue to be in awesome hands. This one will be my new home base — my longform Twitter, if you will. Hope to see you here sometime. And if you’re ever in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-Palm Beach area, look a brother up!
There’s an old rule of thumb in politics: Every election is about the future. Obama is betting the White House on this. Months ago, David Axelrod, the president’s chief strategist, told me, “Obama ran for president because he believed there was a confluence of problems that were a long time in the making, a consequence of rapid changes in communications, technology, and the economy. And the real question was, ‘Are we mature enough as a country to deal with that in a way that works for most Americans?’”
Once again, Obama is proceeding with a message of some sophistication: This election is not about venting; it is about selecting the path forward. And he’s hoping that voters—especially those few remaining undecided ones—will choose not to vent about the current state of the economy, will ignore the usual campaign silliness, and will carefully consider the alternatives before making an informed decision about what lies ahead.
David Corn, “Obama’s Big Speech: It’s a Fight About Values”
Ron Burgundy Announces Sequel to Anchorman Movie on Conan Show
This is the best thing ever ever.
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