Sunday Scan

Happy Passover

Passover started with the Sabbath yesterday, so my best wishes to all my Jewish friends on this remarkable and holy holiday.

And my thanks to Ask.com for illustrating its home page this morning with the artwork above. And what about Google? Nothing of course. Why do they so fear religion? Ask has honored religion for as long as I've used it, and so far, the Secularists have not rebelled against it.

Neither has God's wrath poured down on Google, but I know that if the Googleites were living in Egypt back in the times of Passover, a plague would fall upon it.

Giving Greenies The Sack

Knee-jerk central -- that's the Bay Area, home of ill-thought out political actions and decisions made on the emotion of the moment, like last year's action by Oakland to ban plastic bags in retail stores with annual sales of $1 million or more.

Nexis sent me to a June 2007 SF Wrongicle article heralding the passage of the ban:

Under the measure sponsored by Councilwomen Nancy Nadel and Jean Quan, any retailer grossing more than $1 million a year would be banned from using the nonbiodegradable plastic bags. Nadel said that 10 percent of petroleum is used to create plastic so that reducing the use of bags will help the environment in multiple ways.

"Californians use 19 billion plastic disposable bags each year, and throw away 600 every second," Nadel said. "These bags are made from oil, so reducing their use will serve the mission of the 'Oil Independent Oakland by 2020' " task force established last year.

Them's some mighty fine knee-jerk stats. But now, as a judge temporarily suspends the order, we find that once again environmentalists are fueled more by emotion than fact. Here's the Oakland Trib:

A Superior Court judge issued a tentative ruling Thursday placing an injunction on Oakland's plastic-bag ban, saying the city should have more adequately studied the environmental impact of the ban before passing it into law.

Judge Frank Roesch's ruling came after a plastic-bag industry group called the Coalition to Support Plastic Bag Recycling sued Oakland last summer shortly after the City Council approved a ban on single-use plastic bags at retail stores doing more than $1 million a year in business. The judge heard arguments in the case in January.

The ban was billed as an environmentally friendly ordinance. But at the crux of the case was a question on whether the increased use of paper bags could harm the environment as well.

Paper bags take more energy to create and fill up more landfill space, the plastic-bag industry argued.

"The court ... finds that substantial evidence in the record supports at least a fair argument that single-use paper bags are more damaging than single-use plastic bags," Roesch wrote.

To go on with their ban, the Oakland City Council would now have to authorize a full-blown Environmental Impact Report to study the environmental effects of the ban -- at a cost of at last $100,000 in a down economy. It is quite possible the knee-jerkers will win, and $100,000 that could be used for something useful will be sacrificed on to the Greenie Gods.

A High Rate Of Cynicism

The always-interesting Stats delivered this a.m.:

The three-
component Maslach Burnout Inventory-
General Survey was implemented to examine burnout among newspaper journalists (N = 770). With a moderate rate of exhaustion, a high rate of cynicism and a moderate rate of professional efficacy, burnout among journalists demonstrate higher rates of burnout than previous work. Additionally, journalists expressing intentions to leave the profession (n = 173) demonstrated high rates of exhaustion and cynicism, and moderate rates of professional efficacy, making them “at-risk” for burnout. (Read more)

Sounds like me when I left journalism ... except that my "high rate of cynicism" was directed at how cynical my editors and colleagues were, not at the world in general.

What's illuminating here is that the burned-out journalists don't leave to become fig growers or car salesmen; they just keep reporting, delivering us news through a cynical, exhausted filter.

Sequestered Carbon News

Kudos to the Bush Admin for keeping Warmie hysteria in check during international talks that are a precursor to the next big UN global warming inititives.

There are plenty of nations there that want to set a goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, including the EU nations, Japan and Canada (which most any way you slice it would benefit from global warming). But the US is only "seriously considering" the goal under Bush, and by refusing to endorse it, effectively is preventing the establishment of such a destructive goal.

Meanwhile, buried 12 paragraphs deep in the Reuters story was this:

France said that South Africa presented studies suggesting it would cost the world up to $200 billion a year to curb greenhouse gases and between $30 and $60 billion a year to adapt to effects such as droughts or rising seas.

No further discussion merited, apparently -- including no question about why France would bring up the South African study and still support a 50% greenhouse gas reduction target.

China 1: It's Not Just Tibet

China is becoming the global leader in thuggery, not just suppressing freedom in Tibet, but lending its hand to ruthless, blood-soak dictators across the globe.

Here's the latest unsurprising update, from The (UK) Independent:

Chinese troops have been seen on the streets of Zimbabwe's third largest city, Mutare, according to local witnesses. They were seen patrolling with Zimbabwean soldiers before and during Tuesday's ill-fated general strike called by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Earlier, 10 Chinese soldiers armed with pistols checked in at the city's Holiday Inn along with 70 Zimbabwean troops.

One eyewitness, who asked not to be named, said: "We've never seen Chinese soldiers in full regalia on our streets before. The entire delegation took 80 rooms from the hotel, 10 for the Chinese and 70 for Zimbabwean soldiers."

So the next time you're all sympatico with some left-wing acquaintance because your positions over China and Tibet align, raise this one: "Have you spoken out against China's involvement in Zimbabwe and Venezuela?" And watch the blank stare.

China 2: Fixing The Weather

One of the biggest challenges facing the Beijing Olympics -- besides cerain human rights issues -- is the weather. Why? Well, here's Beijing weather in a nutshell:

Winter is marked by howling Siberian winds; summer, by sweltering monsoon heat. In lieu of showers, springtime is best known for seasonal dust storms that sweep down from Central Asia. Fall is parched and gusty too, but the dust settles down.

Overlay on all this industrial pollution the likes of which we haven't seen since the English midlands at the peak of the industrial revolution, then factor in the 50% chance of rain expected for the opening ceremonies, and you get the picture.

China is responding by stepping up its long-term, large-scale (52,998 employees) programs of industrial weather alteration. It's a troubling, wild, 5-clicker of a story at Plenty that makes a good Sunday read.

China 3: Wei, Way Out

Blogger secret revealed: I sometimes right about stuff I don't understand at all. Like the work of Chinese artist Li Wei (should we give him a little leeway?), which is described at Hemmy.net as as:

Chinese artist Li Wei from Beijing started off his performance series ‘Mirroring’ and later on took off attention with his ‘Falls’ series which shows the artist with his head and chest embedded into the ground. His work is a mixture of performance art and photography that creates illusions of a sometimes dangerous reality. Li Wei states that these images are not computer montages and works with the help of props such as mirror, metal wires, scaffolding and acrobatics.

Got that? Not a computer montage, just some props, mirrors, wires and acrobatics. Then how do you explain this:



More images here.

Obama-Fawning Continues At MSM

Barack Obama said something that sniffed a bit like a whopper today -- and not the hamburger kind. Not that anyone in the media bothered to question it.

The story is all over the media, from an interview Obama gave to The Advocate, a gay newspaper. In it, he says he'll do what he can to make military life better for gays, and criticizes "don't ask don't tell" thusly:

"We're spending large sums of money to kick highly qualified gays or lesbians out of our military, some of whom possess specialties like Arab-language capabilities that we desperately need. That doesn't make us more safe."

Really? We've been kicking out Arab speaking gays? I'd like a bit of verification, please.

I'm not sure about "don't tell," but reporters sure have a "don't ask" attitude about Obama. Outlets that have run the story without fact-checking the quote include CNN, the Guardian, Military.com, Town Hall, Fox News, The Boston Globe, and Stars & Stripes -- all of them, and many, many more carrying the same AP story without a question.

As it turns out, a second or two on the good ol' WWW could have given reporters an initial, iffy answer to the question, if they had thought to ask it:

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has only six (6) fluent Arabic speakers out of 33 who speak Arabic. Yet, despite the Bush administration’s lip-service to a need for more Arabic speakers, the U.S. military has fired over two dozen linguists for being gay: 20 were Arabic linguists, 6 were Farsi linquists. (source)

Even if the statement is true -- it's linked to a Carpetbagger Report post that links the source for the quote to The New Republic (hardly a credible source!) via a broken link that lands you on the home page, where a search for "pentagon linguists arabic" lands you nothing.) -- it's disingenuous.

The number of fluent Arabic speakers in the Baghdad embassy is a useless piece of information deliberately used to make the problem appear big because the number is so small. But there are linguists elsewhere besides the embassy, from Forward Operating Bases to Central Command to the NSA.

But at least I asked the question. I thought the days when reporters grabbed the news releases from the candidates and ran them without a question ended with Watergate. But I guess that only goes for Republicans.

Reporting All But The Key Facts

They've arrested a guy at Orlando Airport before he could get on a plane with bomb-making materials, and that's great. It's just the reporting that's lacking. Here's the account from a local TV station:

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Jamaican man behavior specialists spotted acting suspiciously was detained and arrested after components used to make pipe bombs, unknown liquids and bomb-making literature were found in his luggage at Orlando International Airport. ...

The passenger, who the FBI identified as Kevin Brown, 32, was immediately taken into custody and a portion of the Terminal A in front of Virgin Atlantic was closed to passengers.

During a search of Brown's luggage, airport authorities found two galvanized pipes, end caps, two small containers containing BBs, batteries, two containers with an unknown liquid and bombing making literature, FBI officials said.

It goes on, but that's the gist of it. What's missing? Two things.

First, a description of the literature would be more than nice. Was it "Blowing Up Airplanes for Dummies" -- as implied but not clarified by the reference to "bomb-making literature" in the lead, or was it more sinister -- a some psycho rant he was working on ... or jihadist literature? Inquiring minds want to know.

One might -- might, mind you, given the quality of reporting nowadays -- assume the reporter would ask. If he or she did, then either the cops weren't talking or the editor cut it. Either is all right if the motivation is to protect the integrity of an ongoing investigation, but if the motivation is to protect Muslim sensitivities, then heads should roll.

Figuratively, of course. This is America, not Saudi Arabia or Iran.

Second, where exactly was that luggage when it was searched? If it was in checked-in baggage, it's much less significant than if it was in his carry-on baggage. The latter means his intent might have been to blow up that plane, and that TSA security was severely lacking.

The account tells us nothing, evidence of a level of reporting one could expect from an 8th grader. The accompanying flash slide show, however, shows a photo of the man seated on a curb outside the airport with a bomb squad person next to him apparently checking the contents of a bag. The caption reads:

When the person's bag was checked, it was found to have prohibitive [sic] materials inside, officials said. There was no word what was inside the bag.

Yet the lead says "components used to make pipe bombs, unknown liquids and bomb-making literature" were found in the bag. So was it in the carry-on? This story is so confusing!

I would be remiss if I didn't pass on the humor of the story. Remember, this guy was captured after "behavior specialists" spotted him "acting suspiciously." Way to go, TSA, having behavior specialists at the ready to defend the homeland. Except, a few paragraphs down the story says:

Passengers waiting to board flights at Orlando International Airport Tuesday said they noticed Brown acting suspiciously before agents moved in.

"He looked rather crazy," a passenger said. "He was rocking left and right and up and down. He looked a little wacko."

That could be a nervous man, a Muslim in prayer, or a person with a mental illness -- but it's hardly behavior that requires a behavior specialist to observe and act on.

Sunday Scan

Dith Pram, Journo-Hero, Dies

The world would have learned what Pol Pot did in Cambodia -- killing 2 million of its 7 million people -- without Dith Pran, but the former NYT translator carried the story to the world so effectively that it's hard to imagine the story without him.

Dith (Cambodians do last names first) created the term "killing fields" as he survived the horror for five years, and brought us story through The Killing Fields. He survived Pol Pot, but not pancreatic cancer, and there's a loving obit in the NYT, where he became a photographer.

There's a quote in the AP story on Dith that I really liked. It didn't make the NYT story; I think you'll understand why:

He was "the most patriotic American photographer I've ever met, always talking about how he loves America," said Associated Press photographer Paul Sakuma, who knew Dith through their work with the Asian American Journalists Association.

When you can experience America after living through what happens if countries are left to Communists -- particularly crazy Communists in Cambodia's case -- it's hard not to be patriotic.

Non-Story Of The Day

I bring you the Hooters Girls only to make a point: Some political news stories only exist because of big boobs in tight T-shirts, like this one from the Merc News:

It's a pretty safe bet Assemblyman Joe Coto won't be patronizing Hooters anymore.

"You're going to get me in trouble," Coto, D-San Jose, quipped last week, after IA inquired about the most interesting line item on his campaign expense report for late 2007.

The item on page 73 shows a $319.13 "meeting" at a Hooters restaurant in Sacramento, an eatery more famous for cleavage than cuisine thanks to the "Hooters Girls." That's what the attention-loving company calls the young women who dress in tight white tops and skimpy orange shorts while serving burgers, fried chicken and beer to drooling customers.

So what's Coto - a well-dressed, married man, a former superintendent for the East Side Union High School District - doing eating at a place like Hooters?

I am definitely not a Hooters fan -- I'm deeply suspicious of a restaurant that has to rely on sex for customers; it makes me question the quality of its food -- but c'mon, if an elected wants to eat there, it's not like he's spending campaign funds for crack and lap dances.

But here's how desperate the media is to titillate: Coto's Hooters bill was for carry-out for an office dinner, not for table service. Even thought they knew this, the experts in news judgment went ahead with the story anyway.

And we trust them with important stories.

Greenie Fundamentals Revealed

In the Greenie e-mag Greenbang, climate gal Dr. Kate Rowles lets down her guard and tells us what the Greenie/Warmie movement is really all about:

Greenbang: What do you think is wrong with the debate on climate change?

Dr Kate: It hasn’t really got to grips with the fundamental problem, which is that Western, industrialised lifestyles are literally unsustainable. Climate change is just one symptom of this. [The World Wildlife Federation] famously calculated that if everyone on earth were to enjoy the lifestyle of an average Western European, we would need three planet earths.

Not even the most optimistic believers in technology think that we can technofix this problem so that 6 billion people (let alone the projected 9 billion) can enjoy a western lifestyle without ecological meltdown. It follows that we urgently need to rethink what we currently mean by a ‘high standard of living’ and move away from materialistic versions of this to an understanding of quality of life that could be enjoyed by everyone, without causing environmental mayhem. This is about values, not just about technology.

I'm not "the most optimistic believer in technology" by any means, yet I think we can "technofix" the problem, because I believe in the boundless desire of man to survive and thrive ... and to adapt.

The Greenies think in terms of limits, not adaptation. To them, our future is limited, our ability to deal with change is limited, our ability to plan is limited, our intelligence is limited. Take for example the projection of a population of 9 million. China, India and Africa are responsible for most of the population growth and China and India have, through methods I hardly condone, gotten a handle on theirs. No limits to to human ability to learn and adapt.

Dreary Dr. Kate continues:

Current levels of consumption in industrialised societies are too high - as the three planet earth analysis clearly shows. This presents a major problem for current economic thinking, which is premised on growth, and which requires us all to keep consuming more, not less. Clearly we can’t grow infinitely, and consume infinitely, on a finite planet.

In other words, poor people of the world, unite! ... and give up all hope that your life will ever improve, because if the Greenies and Warmies succeed in dialing back Western creativity and growth, any hope the poor nations have for a better future is gone.

But that's OK with Dr. Kate Rowles, because if poor people live better, it's just more carbon to her.

h/t a long chain starting with What Bubba Knows, through Moonbattery and on ...

A Resounding McCain Endorsement

John McCain my not be touting this "endorsement" on his Web site -- after all, the headline is Why We Should Fear a McCain Presidency, and it is a scathing denouncement of his foreign policy. But given that it's from the Moscow Times, it's a reassurance that he might be the right man for the job.

A couple excerpts:

Driven in part by his intense commitment to the Iraq war, McCain has relied more on neoconservatives such as his close friend William Kristol, the Weekly Standard editor. His chief foreign policy adviser is Randy Scheunemann, another leading neoconservative and a founder of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. McCain shares their belief in what Kristol has called "national greatness conservatism." In 1999, McCain declared: "The U.S. is the indispensable nation because we have proven to be the greatest force for good in human history. ... We have every intention of continuing to use our primacy in world affairs for humanity's benefit." ...

Reflecting the neoconservative program of spreading democracy by force, McCain declared in 2000: "I'd institute a policy that I call 'rogue state rollback.' I would arm, train, equip, both from without and from within, forces that would eventually overthrow the governments and install free and democratically elected governments."

Oh, the horror!

Never Having To Say You're Sorry

Pick you're media outlet; it's all the same story. Here's BBC:

Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has ordered his fighters off the streets of Basra and other cities in an effort to end clashes with security forces.

He said in a statement that his movement wanted the Iraqi people to stop the bloodshed and maintain the nation's independence and stability.

I chose BBC because I was listening to it while driving home one day last week, as the fighting in Basra was just rolling out. What better source, eh?, since the Brit withdrawal from Basra had motivated Moqtada Sadr to start fighting again.

So BBC had its Basra reporter and some foreign affairs reporter from a British paper ... the Telegraph, I think ... on, talking about how this was going to be a tough fight, how strong Sadr is, how not-ready the Iraqi Army is, blah, blah, blah.

Well, I read the story about Sadr giving up in less than a week from top to bottom, and nowhere did I see an admission that they got it wrong. Again.

Another Crazy AG (Thank God!)

The Left loves to hate Bush AGs, and Michael Mukasey is no exception, maybe because he says stuff like this (in NanPo's hometown, yet!):

"Forget the liability [phone companies face]. We face the prospect of disclosure in open court of what they did, which is to say the means and the methods by which we collect foreign intelligence against foreign targets."

Whether it's demanding the closure of Gitmo so the worst terrorists in the world can be tried in our court system, or denying phone companies protection so that our technologies are laid open, the Lefties are intent on using our courts to put America at the greatest disadvantage possible in the war on terror.

Faced with enemies without and enemies within, Bush has no choice but to have a tough, no-nonsense AG. And recognizing that, the Left has no choice but to attack every AG Bush appoints.

Afghan Journalist Death Sentence: A Good Thing?

In Afghanistan, a young journalism student -- just 23 years old -- has been sentenced to death for printing up his own little newspaper with stuff he downloaded from the internet -- stuff Islamic judges have decreed violates Islam.

Click here for Sayad Parwez Kambaksh's story. The story is not at its final chapter yet, though. Kambaksh has a couple appeals before his fate, whatever it may ultimately be, will be sealed.

Some pundits will seize this story as an example of our failure to stop the Taliban and its influence in Afghanistan. They include Jules Crittenden, who wrote this a.m.:

I thought the point of that invasion was to bring an end to this kind of thing.

But he and the others miss the point by half. Yes, it would have been nice if the invasion would have instantaneously re-righted a ship that's been leaning hard-Islam for centuries, but could we have at least an iota of reasonableness in our expectations?

It may not have been the point of the invasion, but it is because of the invasion that we are reading about what's happening to Kambaksh. Until America had the audacity to secure freedom for Afghans -- something the Russians certainly never intended to offer them -- those who defied the Islamic inner circle's opinion of what was right suffered in medieval anonymity.

AP did not carry their stories. Memeorandum did not pick the stories up and re-distribute them broadly over the Internet. The secret councils just did their dirty work for Allah out of sight, with no one to stand up for the victims of Mohammed, He Who Must Never, Never, Ever Be Challenged. There was no public knowledge or public opinion -- because the public simply did not matter.

That has all changed with the invasion. The spotlight of the world is on the ancient brutality of Islam, and Islam is not standing up well to the scrutiny. As the West rises up in protest, and it certainly will rise up to defend Kambaksh, it empowers those within the repressive Islamic system who want to speak more freely, to vote in elections, to control their own destiny. And it weakens those who use the Koran to keep the people chained.

So yes, the invasion is putting and end to this sort of thing. But the invasion is not a superhero that can jump tall institutions in a single bound. It is a thing of incremental gains, and we will see this again in the case of this young journalist who, I'll bet you, will not be executed.

So hooray for the invasion. Without it, it would be much worse in Afghanistan, and much, much worse for a certain young journalism student.

Photo: Time

Hide The Kids! There's A Journalist Outside!

Many bloggers railed against the NYT for its overblown, under-researched, shrilly anti-military story, Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles, but none have done a better job than that ol' pipe-smoking codger at Iowahawk.

Here's how he set out to do it:

As Casualties Mount, Some Question The Emotional Stability of Media Vets

An Iowahawk Special Investigative Report
With Statistical Guidance from the New York Times

A Denver newspaper columnist is arrested for stalking a story subject. In Cincinnati, a television reporter is arrested on charges of child molestation. A North Carolina newspaper reporter is arrested for harassing a local woman. A drunken Chicago Sun-Times columnist and editorial board member is arrested for wife beating. A Baltimore newspaper editor is arrested for threatening neighbors with a shotgun. In Florida, one TV reporter is arrested for DUI, while another is charged with carrying a gun into a high school. A Philadelphia news anchorwoman goes on a violent drunken rampage, assaulting a police officer. In England, a newspaper columnist is arrested for killing her elderly aunt.

And, oh my, how it does go on, to the point where you'd best warn the kiddies not to hang out around newspapers or broadcast stations. But of course, I've been giving my girls stern warnings in that regard since they were old enough to listen.

You might be tempted to not believe that journos can behave so brutally ... but do so at your own risk and the risk of your loved ones, because Iowahawk has done his homework (probably in his pajamas), and it looks to me to be mighty scientific stuff, on a par with a lot of the best global warming research we see:
Frequent hat-tipee Jim forwarded this along with the line, "Best post of the year!"

At first I was deeply hurt the link he provided didn't lead me to somewhere within my beloved C-SM ... sigh ... but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. It's some mighty fine blogging.

Murdoch Snags The Wall Street Journal

The Business, London's online business news site, is reporting that Rupert Murdoch has pulled it off:

Rupert Murdoch has succeeded with his $5 billion bid for Dow Jones, owners of the Wall Street Journal, according to sources acting for the Dow Jones board. Negotiations have been completed and the board is confident the terms of the deal will be accepted by the Bancroft family, which controls a majority of voting shares in Dow Jones, over the next few days. A formal announcement is expected next week.

Murdoch’s News Corporation will take over America’s most prestigious financial publisher at the price he originally offered on April 17, when he proposed $60 a share when the stock was trading at $36, a 67% premium.

Murdoch's empire catches plenty of flak from the left, but it's OK with me. Some a bit too smarmy for my taste, but he's a serious media mogul, not some profit-hounding, sex-peddling whack job. Even so, the next paragraph in the article was welcome:

After lengthy talks involving many lawyers, the deal includes a legally-enforceable agreement with Murdoch which will supposedly guarantee the integrity and independence of the Wall Street Journal’s journalism.

The Wall Street Journal is a masterpiece and has been forever. I read it in J-school as an example of how to do things right (along with the other CSM), and it should stay so, a journalistic Mona Lisa for us to behold and say, "That's how it's done!"

Booze And News

Are journalists a bunch of pill-popping, booze-swilling, philandering mental basket cases, and if so, how does that effect the quality of journalism?

Or is the hard-living journalist a thing of the past, and today's sterile, uninteresting, corporate-speak news a producte of too little self-destruction?

Interesting questions,eh? They've been asked, and have raised a bit of a buzz, in an article just published in Columbia Jouranlism Review about a paper titled "Depression, Drink and Dissipation" by Doug Underwood, which appeared in the journal Journalism History.

Published in the winter 2007 volume of Journalism History, "Depression, Drink and Dissipation" finds that almost half of the best people to ever push a noun against a verb in newsprint were debilitated by depression, serious anxiety, or bipolar disorder; over a third were titanic drunks, pill-poppers, or opium-addicts; nearly a third were serial philanderers, and a sizable bunch were misogynists, man-eaters, or violent bullies. In almost every case, the tendency to booze, carouse, or otherwise self-annihilate developed or seriously deepened during their days in journalism. All this is enough to make Underwood, who left a career covering politics for the Seattle Times to teach at the University of Washington, wonder whether "these behaviors and the choice of journalism and writing as a career are perhaps not unrelated." Well, yeah.

Underwood's definition of "journalist" is pretty broad, as it includes novelists and playwrightes to may have earned a few bucks in their lean years as journalists, like Ernest Hemingway. But let's not quibble with details because:

His research spans over 300 years -- from Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) to Rick Bragg (1959-) -- and benefits from a survey of more than 900 staffers at the fifty largest-circulation daily newspapers, asking which writers have influenced their work. Any writer named twice or more was added to the big list. The remaining names were added based on Underwood's judgment. ...

Underwood lists nineteen literary journalists, including Agee, Ring Lardner, and Robert Benchley, who died from drinking. Seven others, among them George Orwell and Mark Twain, killed themselves smoking. William Dean Howells and A.J. Liebling were two of thirteen who ate their way to an early grave. Then there are the suicides: goodbye Gloria Emerson, Ernest Hemingway, and Hunter S. Thompson.

Two famous hard-living journalists, Pete Hamill and Jimmy Breslin [that's Breslin in the photo], think all this carousing has been good for journalism, and blame clean-living for the state of journalism today:

For over a decade, the two ex-hard drinkers and legendary newsmen have been saying that print owes its readership woes to a dead corporate air in the newsroom. "Everything's more restrained and we've lost a certain edge," Hamill told the Denver Post in 1995. Meanwhile, Breslin knows what's missing: "It's the drinking." They grouse that today's reporters forgo drinking clubs and bawdy pals in favor of health clubs and quiet homes.

The journalist Underwood profiles has inner demons that make him angry, skeptical and distrustful of authority; traits many would say are foundational to great investigative journalism and political coverage. Breslin said it well:

"Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers."

CEJ's writer, Tony Dokoupil, asks the pointed question:

For good or ill, journalism and neurosis may be inextricably caught up together, tangled in the timeless conundrum of what comes first. Does the profession break talented people with steady pressure, severe constraints, and public censure for missteps? Or does it attract broken talent who seek unstable schedules, extreme experiences, and the megalomaniacal pleasure of their name in print?

From my personal experience as a j-school grad and ex-journalist, it's decidedly the latter. Deadline pressure, a varied and challenging life and seeing my name in print made journalism very attractive to me, as did anger. Idiot that I was, I was thrilled when Woodward and Bernstein brought down a president.

Newsrooms today are not cigarette strewn and whiskey bottles aren't tucked away in too many desks, but I don't think the attractions of journalism have changed, so the nice face reporters put on themselves is, to a large degree, phony -- and the higher up the pecking order, the more phoney it's likely to be.

The same insecurities and angers still fuel the industry, but they're more hidden. There are pills in the purse and the booze in the apartment -- and probably even more desire to lash out, since secrecy just breeds more negative behavior.

Maybe They Should Give More

Here's the headline on a story AP ran this afternoon on colleges receiving increased donations:

College Giving Up 9.6 Percent in 2006

Fifteen minutes later, AP ran this story:

College Giving Up 9.4 Percent in 2006

I guess college journalism classes aren't spending much time on math nowdays.