That's life

lone star summer, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Not alcoholism, of course, even if I did just lose a job. That picture, though, says "Texas summer nights" to me as well as any I've taken, and for the last week or so it really has been summertime, living easy, etc.

I just realized that I never once mentioned on this blog that I was leaving the Washington Post. I guess actually the Post left me, and Austin. And I did tell anyone who would care about this news in person, anyways.

But it's now officially done. Adios, office by the capitol. Adios, sifting through endless news stories and answering phones. Adios, set schedule. Adios, insurance. (Hello, Cobra.)

Still got the Observer gig going, although I've already told them I'm almost certainly going to have to leave in mid-August. The lease on our apartment only runs through July, although we can stay at friends' and families' places around town for a couple weeks. But for now Amanda and I no closer to knowing what comes next than we were weeks ago.

I'm surprisingly non-worried about the whole deal. I sweated for a few days, then I said, eh, and started reading some good books (The Black Swan and The Corner, both highly recommended.)

And as for leaving the Post, it wasn't exactly gut-wrenching either. I was ready for a chance of pace, and it's weird working for a satellite office of a company (and industry) in flux and in a panic. From a distance, my impression of working in the D.C. newsroom could be equated to signing up for one of those prescription drug studies. Yeah, you might make out with some good dough, but it seems a little like walking into a social experiment. The politics and bureaucracy of such a high-profile institution sound like dubious waters to jump into.

That said, I enjoyed the job I had, and everyone I worked with, from my immediate boss, Sylvia (now back in D.C. with a new beat), to my editors to the other reporters I talked to on the phone were all real nice, professional, everything you'd expect. (And that's not just kissing ass in case anyone from the company ever stumbles across this blog, although that couldn't hurt.)

But the Post right now is all mixed-up, like most newspapers. It still produces some of the best and most meaningful journalism around, but it also produces a ton of bullshit. Like I said, weird to observe in bits and pieces from afar.

I could say more, but I don't know if it'd be interesting to anyone outside of journalism. I'll think on it. Sucks that already I've had to censor what I write on here because I want to be able to use it in job applications — and not have it ruin job references, for that matter. I mean, I've known the bureau was shutting down — excuse me, the company decided to reallocate resources to cover the 2008 presidential campaign — for like five months. I just couldn't say anything because it wasn't public knowledge in D.C. Closing bureaus, domestic and foreign, is a touchy subject in the industry these days.

Lazy journalism

This may be a bit of a stretch, but stick with me. My cousin, who's a bit older, a bit wiser, has been emailing with me lately about jobs and so forth. This advice, in particular, keeps bouncing around my head:

Do what you got to do, but my advice is shoot for a place that allows you to build your ideas not talk about them. That’s why I didn’t like journalism (tearing down ideas) or politics (manipulating others’ ideas).

So that was on my mind when I was trying to figure out why the media were just relentlessly haranguing Dirk Nowitzki, blaming him for all of the Mavs' ills in this series with Golden State when it had been, until last night's close win, a total team failure. As I mentioned a couple posts ago, the world is gushing and gushing about Baron Davis as he passes to one-time no names like Matt Barnes, who's been knocking down threes all series. Then they turn around and just kill Dirk for passing out of double- and triple-teams to proven veterans like Jerry Stackhouse, who's shooting around 30 percent for the series. This is Dirk's fault?

But if you think, like most everyone does, that Dirk is the MVP, then it all makes sense. The idea of Dirk-as-MVP is an easy idea to latch on to and tear down (or it was easy until his heroics last night).

Just check out these quotes, not just from hacks on Around the Horn (except you, Michael Smith), but from some of the better reporters in the sports biz.

From the AP:

For the first 236 minutes of the playoffs, Dirk Nowitzki was little more than a bit player for the Dallas Mavericks.

Then he made his presence felt in a big way -- the way the league's likely MVP is supposed to do.

From Mark Stein: "Yet it turns out that three minutes, for the likely MVP-to-be, is still a lot of time, even after roughly 237 minutes of misery, confusion and frustration in his Round 1 nightmare."

And, in typical overblown fashion, Bill Simmons (hiding behind a fake David Stern voice):

You (Dirk) didn't just fail to step up like an MVP should, you whined and complained the entire series, disgraced your teammates and embarrassed your fans. ... I don't know whether to hand you this trophy or smash it over your head. Lucky for you, this is being televised, so I can only hand you the trophy and congratulate you on the 2006-07 Most Valuable Player Award. I'm going to leave now so I can throw up.

Look, Dirk was not dominating like I expected him to either. But these are guys who get paid to observe and analyze this sport, so I thought maybe they would entertain the argument that Dirk was making the right basketball plays. If you've ever played the sport, it was easy to see that Dirk made the right passes just about all series. If his teammates had hit their shots (like they did all season), Dallas might have won this series already. Then we'd hear non-stop about how Nowitzki changed his game to help his team win. But his teammates didn't, and tearing down Dirk's MVP award is the easiest and most obvious story line to latch on to as a way of explaining the Mavs's loss.

(An aside: If that's the definition of MVP — best player at single-handedly creating and making his own ridiculously tough shot in the clutch — let's just give the award to Kobe every year and forget about it. I’d rather play with the guy who passes.)

Not to mention, the writers could talk how the Warriors are playing on a different plane right now. Not even Phoenix can boast an eight-man rotation with seven legitimate three-point threats. Coupled with the Warriors newfound ability to defend, they've been incredible to watch. My friend Tom described it best: "They're like a pack of wolves." Never mind all that, though, let’s criticize Dirk.

Last night he found himself single-covered down the stretch, and he scored like 12 of the Mavs' final 15 points. Nellie's not going to let that happen again in Oakland. And when he makes the right pass, it's going to come down to whether his teammates come through. Maybe that's not an MVP, I dunno. But it's worked pretty well for Tim Duncan and his three rings.

(All that said, I think the energy in in Oakland is too high for the Mavs right now. Golden State will move on and sweep Houston.)

What can you say?

Being part of the media gives me the creeps during tragedies. True, many people do a lot of good, dogged, necessary work in gathering information people want or need to see. But the siege-like atmosphere after the fact, with continuous live coverage via satellite truck, is excessive, tasteless, and pointless.

But then there are the poets. News agencies gather information and hope for an emotional response. Poets, like Nikki Giovanni above, simply turn words into emotion. It almost goes without saying that the literal meaning doesn't matter as much as striking the right tone, which her short performance seemed to do. If you saw the well-meaning drone of the previous speakers, as I did at work, my meaning would probably be clearer. But I'll stop there since the only thing left to say about the tragedy itself is to offer condolences.

One general thought, though. At some point during the TV coverage, the talking heads started speculating about how yesterday's events should shape gun control policy. The answer is: it shouldn't. Policy regulates society. It is a set of rules put in place to govern large groups of people who are assumed to be rational actors. It is not intended to account for a crazy person, who, almost by definition, is not part of that society. You simply cannot prevent something so patently irrational with a piece of legislation. And in focusing on trying to prevent "the next (insert horrible event here)," it seems inevitable that the focus would fall away from enacting laws that are effective across the greatest swath of society. It just seems obvious that laws should be geared toward people who will take into account the costs, punitive or societal, of their actions, not someone so clearly deranged. (Leslie, feel free to jump in here and correct me if I'm wrong.)

It is, however, a good time to evaluate crisis response plans and the like. For example, as a painful intellectual exercise, consider this link, via Tommy. That's one of the more disgusting examples of how a mind can panic that I've seen.

UPDATE: In comments, Amy asks, "what are your thoughts on NBC's airing of the video?"

I didn't see it, but in general, I think it's appropriate. There's a significant public interest in seeing the video and perhaps understanding the killer better — even if it's only to the extent that people realize he was completely, utterly insane. What matters is what the news agency does after it's adequately satisfied that public interest. It's a blurry line, but there's definitely a point at which coverage goes from informative to exploitative.

Evidence of a Barack star

obama through the signs, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Some numbers on the Cowboy Barack photo below: Uploaded on Feb. 23 around 11 p.m., within 72 hours it had 1,096 views, 26 favs, 21 comments, and was, according to Flickr's algorithm, the third-most interesting picture I've taken. A good shot, yes, but I think the subject had more to do with it. The guy's mojo is really amazing. I'm not sure where it comes from, except that people our age (in Austin) are damn sick of Bush and want nothing much to do with The Hillary.

I was going to try to maybe sell the below image to a news service or to the campaign, but I see similar ones found their way to the wire. If you click on this Time story — which is pretty crappy, giving over an entire lengthy paragraph of unfavorable quotes to an admitted Hillary minion — you can actually see me in the very background of the picture (taken by a former Daily Texan coworker), upper-left-hand corner, all blurred out, wearing a brown shirt. Now that's blanket media coverage.

Barack Storms Texas

barack the cowboy, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Something like 20,000 people showed up for a rally today in Austin. Wild stuff. I was incredibly lucky to get this shot. He was only wearing the cowboy hat for like 10 seconds while wading through a throng of volunteers backstage after the speech.

Yowza

My story on that giant mulch fire appears in the Post today, on page A02 no less. Wacky.

Special Edition Double Snapshot Post

My work week:





Those are from a mulch fire out in Helotes, which is just West of San Antonio. The pile's been burning for about two months now, pretty much right in the middle of town. It's a little surreal. When you come around the corner on FM 1560, which, contrary to the farm-road part, is a feeder into several newish subdivisions, you can't miss Mt. Helotes smoldering in the middle of a pasture. I actually said out loud "Holy shnikes!" — and I'm pretty sure I've never said that before in my life.

When the Post runs the story, I'll post it here. My only regret is that I missed, literally by seconds, going on an up-close tour of the site. The Express-News got some pretty dramatic shots while I waited in the parking lot with the PR woman who was supposed to get me on the tour but accidentally got left behind herself.

Still wavering on which of these photos I like better. The B&W is sweet large.

My God, this is ridiculous

The president of Cartoon Network has resigned because officials in Boston are dumb. I can't believe this is what stands in for homeland security now. Someone vote these people out of office.

UPDATE: I mean, we all saw this picture, right? How can you take anyone who would order that kind of emergency action seriously?



(By Lisa Hornak, Reuters)

Getting there

chat piles, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Turns out my editor pulled a fast one on me and snuck that story about the dying Oklahoma mining town into the paper last Saturday. Here it is. More tomorrow.

Fair, balanced, and fired up!

Now that was some football game tonight in Indy, but I think one writer for the AP might have deviated a bit from his company's stylebook:

Not only was it a win for Manning, the All-Pro, All-Everything son of Archie, it was a riveting, back-and-forth showcase of two of the NFL's best teams, best quarterbacks, and yet another example of why football is America's favorite sport.

Cool, I guess if I ever get to cover a wild buzzer-beater in college basketball, I can throw in a sentence like, "Despite sloppy play by inexperienced players, the wild finish reaffirmed why many so many people prefer NCAA basketball to the pros." He does do his best to build suspense during the recap:

Then, the game plan changed because it had to, and the game morphed from another Manning meltdown into something much more.

It was. It was so much more than a football game. I was sure of it as I watched the game and petted my cat. So what happened?

He led the Colts on an 80-yard drive late in the first half for a field goal to make it 21-6. In the third quarter, he was at his cruel best, dissecting an exhausted Patriots defense for a pair of long drives and scores.

Yes, that crazy-eyed killer Manning, the guy that seemingly every company in America wants (and has hired) for their TV ads — he always does his best work while coldly throwing a ball between competing millionaires. His cruelty left the Patriots "a tired, desperate, defeated team in the end." Or one that was putting together a pretty decent last-minute drive before their quarterback made a mistake.

Then again, I should probably cut the guy some slack. Lord knows how many dispatches he had to slave away at, writing from football stadiums in the middle of nowhere, to work his way up to cover a game that actually matched the hype.

The federal government: It's faaaaan-tastic!

bob inman 2, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Taking a break from weddings real quick, I do pursue this other career that actually delivers paychecks on a regular basis. Last Tuesday I finally got an article in the Post that was more than three paragraphs. Had to slide in the side door of the paper, onto the Federal Page, which is devoted entirely to the drama and intrigue of our beloved bureaucracy.

The subject: Whatever happened to Admiral Bobby Inman. You'll have to click through for all the exciting details, including my riveting photo credit.