Finally, a killer ap
: Gizmodo, a new daily fave of mine, reports that the new Dell PDA will have “Compact Flask expansion slots.”
Finally, a good use for a PDA: storing bourbon.
It takes a lot of fertilizer to fill the Garden State
: Josh Marshall has a chortle or two today at the expense of our too-junior senatorial candidate in New Jersey.
Fuhblogaboudit
: James Lileks sends me email pointing us toward a blog from my Jersey neighbor, Tony Soprano.
Supermensch
: Kathy Shaidle of RelapsedCatholic writes about the Jewish roots of superheroes in the latest issue of Jewsweek.
Some fans and amateur historians, obsessed with back-story “mythology”, claim they’ve uncovered the secret “Jewish-ness” of characters created within this unique geopolitical crucible. Superheroes, they claim, are usually outsiders, gifted yet misunderstood, strangers in a strange land. Taking up the theme in, of all things, arch-conservative Nation Review, Robert George mused: “Perhaps that ethnic heritage explains the common themes of abandonment, loss of home, and the existential need to bond oneself to a greater good.”
: Also, in Jewsweek, a story about the new Veggie Tales movie — cartoons by Christians with an agenda — contains this from one of the creators:
“We made a decision at the very beginning not to portray Jesus as a vegetable.”
: And read about Israelis picking up their gasmasks.
After illustrating for us how the adult mask fits, the soldier calmly reminds us of the symptoms to watch for that would necessitate using the anti-nerve gas syringe. Chest pains, body tremors, nausea and vomiting — I experience the symptoms just listening to her. She hands us a small tri-lingual explanatory brochure, and we are ushered out so the next group may receive their instructions.
Terrorism
: A former FBI profiler on the Today show this morning said that whether the face of the Maryland sniper is Mohammed Atta’s or Timothy McVeigh’s, this is terrorism.
Skinbacks I have known
: Romenesko points to a great correction:
The Daily Evergreen would like to sincerely apologize for an injustice served to the Filipino-American, Spanish-speaking and Catholic communities on the front page of Thursday’s Evergreen.
The story “Filipino-American history recognized” stated that the “Nuestra Senora de Buena Esperanza,” the galleon on which the first Filipinos landed at Morro, Bay, Calif., loosely translates to “The Big Ass Spanish Boat.” It actually translates to “Our Lady of Good Peace.”
Pardon me for being inspired to share another old-fart story from my days in the business but I can’t help myself.
Here is the story of the only time I ever got to shout “Stop the presses!!” in my newspaper career.
I was Sunday news editor of the San Francisco Examiner (which meant that I put together the part of the Sunday Examiner-Chronicle that no one read) and we had one story, with photo, about the Catholic church and another story, with photo, about the California condor. The first papers came up from the press room (back in the days when press rooms rumbled below your desk; now they are miles away, somewhere near an Interstate) and we saw with horror that the captions under the two photos had been switched.
So, under the Pope, it read: “Soon to be an endangered species.”
I picked up the phone and yelled, “Stop the presses!!”
This may be why I left hard news for fluff.
