Pimping for a Friend

One of my very best friends, Elizabeth Donald, released her latest book, "Nocturnal Urges: A More Perfect Union" today at Ellora's Cave Publishing. Make sure to check it out and pick up a copy of the ebook, especially if you like vampire fiction or books set in Memphis. Plus there's a cool new female reporter in this book that some of you might recognize. ;)

Yes, I'm Biased, But Hear Me Out

TV Week's Tom Shales thinks that Anderson Cooper is the perfect candidate to replace Dan Rather permanently at "CBS Evening News". You won't be able to read that link unless you're a subscriber, but here's the pertinent part:

Probably the most criticized performer of the coverage so far has been Anderson Cooper, the insanely telegenic anchor of his own nightly CNN news hour. In the early stages of the coverage, when the incompetence of government officials and bureaucrats was becoming shamefully obvious, Cooper became openly emotional on the air, berating at least one such official for the lack of preparedness.

Maybe Cooper's involvement in the story became extreme at that point, but I, for one, was not offended. Indeed, if I were Leslie Moonves, I would right now be trying to entice Mr. Cooper over to CBS to anchor the remodeled "CBS Evening News," if such a thing ever does actually appear on the air. Ironically or not, Cooper's status as a newsman-with-a-heart makes him television kin to Dan Rather, whom Mr. Moonves coldly "nudged" out of the anchor chair earlier this year. (Ironically, too, Rather first made his name during coverage of a deadly hurricane, and marched bravely into many a storm long after becoming anchor. He has been greatly missed during coverage of Katrina.)

Beyond that, Cooper has a newness to him, a wry touch of attitude that he very effectively modulates on the air. It is something that, combined with his visual appeal, could help bring young viewers to news-thus bucking or perhaps even reversing a long and dismaying trend in the other direction. Cooper, uh, still, um, has, uh, trouble ad-libbing, but when reading, when talking into the camera and making viewer contact, he is all poise and polish without being slick. He's no Stepford Anchor, and he deserves a bigger and better chance than CNN can give him.

At first I disagreed with Shales. I think that Cooper has a huge chance to shine at CNN. After all, beyond hosting AC360, he's now cohosting "NewsNight with Aaron Brown", and appears on "Larry King Live" pretty much every night. Whether those will be temporary, I don't know. Cooper's ratings now beat Shephard Smith's on FNN. I could see them going higher if he ever gets moved into the 10pm EST slot, when the younger demographic can actually tune in.

But Shales is right. Ultimately, people will look for network news before switching to a cable channel, if they even have cable. And Cooper now has built a name and reputation that would carry over well to a network. But I don't think CBS is the right fit. But there is another network that's looking for a permanent lead anchor, whether they want to talk about it publically or not. Therefore...

Reasons Why Anderson Cooper Should Co-Host "ABC World News Tonight" w/ Elizabeth Vargas

(Note: This in no way reflect the views of my employer, or my coworkers, or anyone who knows me, etc. etc. etc. yaddayaddayadda)

1. Cooper's been at ABC before. Remember his stint at "World News Now"? I certainly do. And let's not forget his short-lived tenure on "The Mole", although I'm fairly sure he'd like for us to.
2. He's a better fit at ABC, which skews younger and edgier than CBS. And does he really want to singlehandedly revive the reputation of an entire network's news coverage? I don't think so.
3. He's more Peter Jennings than Peter Jennings. He prefers being out in the field (he's already stated that he doesn't want to come back from NOLA) and does amazing reports from places that most of the media hasn't touched (Zaire.) The common folk love him. And he's willing to ask the hard questions and isn't particularly afraid of angering anyone while doing it, much like Jennings was with Big Tobacco.
4. The demographics for a Cooper/Vargas team would be an ad-man's dream. Cooper is young, metrosexual (nope, not touching the rumors here) and charming. Vargas is young, female and Latina (and really good in her own right - sorry that I don't know enough about her to target her more specifically.)
5. Cooper works really well with Erica Hill, who does the CNN Headline News newsbreaks. In fact, their interplay is one of the more entertaining parts of AC360. Even as stern and stodgy as most network news shows are, this might be a nice time to actually test something you don't see a lot of there - chemistry.
6. Cooper downplays this big-time, but you can't really forget that yes, he is a Vanderbilt. And yes, that does open doors with New York power players. It's actually kind of entertaining to see him try to make us forget about that (the best segment I've ever seen on AC360 was when he interviewed his mom Gloria Vanderbilt about her car, and she was Chyron-ed as "Anderson's Mom".)
7. Cooper shares something else with Peter Jennings - a true love of the craft of news and a willingness to do whatever it takes to get the story. You know how he broke into the biz? He bought a camera and hopped on a plane to Somalia to film packages to submit to Channel One. Not many of us are willing to go out on such a limb to do what we love to do. That kind of single-minded dedication is what it takes to make things work.

So that's my useless media advice for the day. Stay tuned for "Why Paula Zahn Needs to Get Off My TV NownowNOW!"

EDIT: Just found this excellent New York article about Cooper. It made me a bit teary-eyed and drove my point on even more. I never knew that his dad was from rural Mississippi and wasn't wealthy, or how the deaths of his dad and brother shaped his career choice. But really, his natural empathy makes more sense now. That's what pain does to you.

Since credit should be given where credit's due

- Yesterday I bitched about how no one has taken any direct responsibility for screwing up with Katrina. Today the last person I expected to do that stepped up to the plate:

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at joint White House news conference with the president of Iraq.

"To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.

Wow, this might be the most brutally honest and factual statement to come from him in over five years in office. But I do have some reservations about that "federal government" caveat, especially since certain former FEMA directors seemed to be awfully eager to find reasons why this was all the fault of local and state authorities. So in case he can't find specific things to take the blame for, here's just a few: underfunding FEMA to where they couldn't prepare for the projected "Hurricane Pam" catastrophe, taking the funds for fixing the levees to fight a war, putting a political crony who couldn't even run a horse association in charge of FEMA, and generally acting like the first few days of this crisis were just an unfortunate distraction to his vacation time. Shall I go on?

Yes, the local and state people fucked up. I have little doubt they won't be around for the next election cycle. Unfortunately, we can't take back last year's election retrospectively. So the least that can be done now is to focus on this question - Do you feel safer now than you did on 9/11/05? What will it take for that to happen? And I'm not talking about going out every possible terrorist on earth, because that would be futile. There are a lot of changes that need to be made to this nation's infrastructure, and NOW is the time to do it. Quit sending Homeland Security money to Wyoming (#1 receiver of funds, per capita) and figure out what would need to be done if the New Madrid Fault erupted, or a tanker with cyanide gas breaks open in downtown Wichita. No one is immune to tragedy, no matter how affluent they are or who they vote for. The best that we can do is make the impact as small as possible.

- In related-but-not-really news, I did something pretty cool last night. I trained to be a Red Cross shelter volunteer. They've asked for 1,000 volunteers for one (possibly two) evacuee shelters in Nashville, and outlying counties also have Red Cross shelters. Personally, I thought it was the least I could do. I don't have much money to contribute, but I'm single and have a fair amount of weekend time to burn. It's only right to help. As a Southerner, I really feel like these are my people, no matter what, and I would only hope they'd feel the same if things were reversed.

A couple of things really struck me at the training session. For one, it seemed like 9/10ths of the people are women. I don't know why I think this is strange, but I do. The only reason I can think of why this would be the case is that there are a lot of stay-at-home moms who want to pitch in. The training time was late in the evening, which is the only time I could do it after working all day. So I can't see a lot of men saying "I had to work" unless they worked till 8 pm.

Also, the Red Cross is completely funded by contributions. They receive no government funding whatsoever, and the only group affiliation I could see was their partnership with the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Brotherhood in providing hot meals in disaster areas. And they go to great, great lengths to make sure that you think of and treat all people in the shelter equally. Everyone was affected by this disaster, not just in one racial or sociological group, and they all get the same help from the Red Cross.

And the aim is to not treat evacuees like they're poor or victims or inferior in any way, but as people just like us who need help to get through something that's disrupted their lives. That's one reason that they almost never take donations of food or clothing from individuals - they want to give people the independence to eat or buy what they normally would. And that's really smart, because when you give someone a little control over what they're doing, even in the little things, they'll take charge more with the rest of their lives. And they talked a lot about the people in the Nashville shelter who have already gotten jobs here and moved into their own housing. These aren't independently wealthy people - they're just taking charge of their lives. And that's a pretty big feat for two weeks after you lost everything you owned thousands of miles away.

The final thing I really noticed is the organization. Everything that the Red Cross does has a name and is part of a plan for either starting, running or closing the shelter. That might be a little daunting in some things (I filled out four forms last night, and I was only a volunteer) but it seems to keep things running smoothly.

In any case, they have so many volunteers that my first shift in Nashville isn't scheduled till the first of October. Maybe I'll try to see if they need help in Franklin and Smyrna in the meantime. But I can only hope that the people affected will soon not need our help. In the meantime, I strongly urge you to volunteer your time with your local Red Cross chapter or America's Second Harvest. Neither group seem to have an agenda beyond helping, and really, that's the only agenda that's needed right now.

Assorted Stuff

- So the Titans lost. Anyone who was shocked by this raise your hand.

.....

Yeah, thought so.

C'mon Nashville, we barely won five games last year, and we were playing the team favored by many to win the AFC Championship last year. Yeah, McNair is healthy. He's also having to play a whole new brand of QB to avoid injury, and don't think that the opponents don't know that. Yes, we have a nice young WR corps, but remember the word "young" there. Plus we've lost practically everyone who's made a name for themselves on defense, and our #1 draft pick didn't make it to training camp till the last week. None of these are good signs for burning up the league at the beginning of the season.

Do I think that this means that the Titans are going to stink to high heaven all season? No. We're going to have a huge trial by fire the next few weeks vs. the Ravens and Colts. But eventually our receiving corps is going to gel, the offensive line will give Travis Henry something to work with, and we'll be decent. No one with an ounce of pragmatism in them expected an incredible season, but we're going to have to get used to something that other cities have dealt with for decades - rebuilding years. And in the process, we need to support Jeff Fisher, the best damn coach in the AFC (I can hear someone laughing - shut it) and not call for his head at the end of the season. That would plunge us into "rebuilding decade".

- Oh, and yeah, there are other teams in town. Vanderbilt is now 2-0, and I haven't gotten my ice skates out for hell yet. And is there anyone around here that remembers the Nashville Sounds? Since I know you've missed it, they're now in the Pacific Coast League championships. No one's going to their games, and no, it's not because there's no support and thus no need to build a new ballpark. It's because no one knows where their current ballpark is. This team deserves our support, both on the citizen-level and the city government level, if for no other reason than it's shameful for Memphis to actually beat Nashville in support for their hometown team.

- I swear that I never want to write another Katrina post again. But here are a couple of good points.

1. Rick Santorium sucks. For that matter, everyone in government (local, state and federal) who is passing the blame along to someone else sucks. Whatever happened to public officials who stand up and say, "Okay, I screwed up"? It really makes me admire JFK taking the blame for the Bay of Pigs, because he apparently was the last government official to say that he was wrong for doing anything. I am happy with no one in this mess, no matter what political party they ran for office under or voted for. And before anyone says that I and others are to blame for even pointing fingers, let me just say that's a big part of democracy. I pay my taxes, and I vote. Therefore I have the right to hold people accountable when things get screwed up. If I didn't, the whole "this is not accurate and the media's twisting things around" might actually work.

2. And may I just say that it's pretty hard to twist pictures of bodies floating through NOLA and someone with their head cut off at the Convention Center. I've seen them. And when multiple people give the same story to different media outlets, there's a good chance that they're telling the truth. My hats are off to all of the reporters, photographers, and production crews that have been in the Gulf Coast for two weeks. It's not an easy job, and you should be commended for remembering what the purpose of journalism is - to tell the truth.

3. I really think that most of us have reached the limit of what we can give to the Red Cross and other organizations, monetarily. But it's important to help our hometown shelters with our time and our goods. Like Second Harvest, or Katrina Shoes, or local churches and organizations that are taking evacuees in on their own. As the media cycle turns and the stories become less noticable, it's important not to forget that these people are going to be here for a long time.

- In closing, I'm going to reprint a lovely Zen koan that I found from a site provided by Brittney:

Gudo was the emperor's teacher of his time. Nevertheless, he used to travel alone as a wandering mendicant. Once when he was on his way to Edo, the cultural and political center of the shogunate, he approached a little village named Takenaka. It was evening and a heavy rain was falling. Gudo was thoroughly wet. His straw sandals were in pieces. At a farmhouse near the village he noticed four or five pairs of sandals in the window and decided to buy some dry ones.

The woman who offered him the sandals, seeing how wet he was, invited him in to remain for the night in her home. Gudo accepted, thanking her. He entered and recited a sutra before the family shrine. He was then introduced to the women's mother, and to her children. Observing that the entire family was depressed, Gudo asked what was wrong.

"My husband is a gambler and a drunkard," the housewife told him. "When he happens to win he drinks and becomes abusive. When he loses he borrows money from others. Sometimes when he becomes thoroughly drunk he does not come home at all. What can I do?"

"I will help him," said Gudo. "Here is some money. Get me a gallon of fine wine and something good to eat. Then you may retire. I will meditate before the shrine."

When the man of the house returned about midnight, quite drunk, he bellowed: "Hey, wife, I am home. Have you something for me to eat?"

"I have something for you," said Gudo. "I happened to be caught in the rain and your wife kindly asked me to remain here for the night. In return I have bought some wine and fish, so you might as well have them."

The man was delighted. He drank the wine at once and laid himself down on the floor. Gudo sat in meditation beside him.

In the morning when the husband awoke he had forgotten about the previous night. "Who are you? Where do you come from?" he asked Gudo, who was still meditating.

"I am Gudo of Kyoto and I am going on to Edo," replied the Zen master.

The man was utterly ashamed. He apologized profusely to the teacher of his emperor.

Gudo smiled. "Everything in this life is impermanent," he explained. "Life is very brief. If you keep on gambling and drinking, you will have no time left to accomplish anything else, and you will cause your family to suffer too."

The perception of the husband awoke as if from a dream. "You are right," he declared. "How can I ever repay you for this wonderful teaching! Let me see you off and carry your things a little way."

"If you wish," assented Gudo.

The two started out. After they had gone three miles Gudo told him to return. "Just another five miles," he begged Gudo. They continued on.

"You may return now," suggested Gudo.

"After another ten miles," the man replied.

"Return now," said Gudo, when the ten miles had been passed.

"I am going to follow you all the rest of my life," declared the man.

Modern Zen teachings in Japan spring from the lineage of a famous master who was the successor of Gudo. His name was Mu-nan, the man who never turned back.

9/11/01

Never Forget

A Frame of Reference

This is a hack of Google Maps that shows how flooding the size of what's covered NOLA after Katrina would cover other U.S. cities.

The link shows you Nashville. For those of you who aren't Nashvillians, I-440 is our outer loop that borders our Downtown area. It goes signifigantly past that, out to Briley Parkway (the outer loop of Metro Nashville. I live near Donelson Pike past the airport, so I'm just barely out of the flooding area, and I'm only barely in the Davidson County limits.

Friday Memage

Friday's Feast
Appetizer
Who is the easiest person for you to talk to?
I really don't know anymore, because I've had some pretty signifigant changes behind-the-scenes lately. Maybe my sister.

Soup
If you could live in any ancient city during the height of the quality of its society and culture, which one would you choose?
Classic Greece.

Salad
What is the most exciting event you've ever witnessed?
Franklin St. in Chapel Hill after the Tar Heels won a berth in the Final Four in 1997.


Main Course
If you were a celebrity, what would you do for a publicity stunt?
I'd have sex with Brad Pitt, because that seems to be fashionable. Nevermind that I don't really find him attractive. Maybe he learned some moves from Ange...

Dessert
What do you consider the ideal age to have a first child?
28. Young enough to be able to run around after them, but old enough to not miss your freedom.

Aloha Friday
Choose a unique item from your wallet and explain why you carry it around.
I have a Strong Bad coaster in my purse (from Homestar Runner.) Comes from getting a Strong Bad autographed picture at the convention last weekend.

What are you wearing today that is most reflective of who you are?
I have a LiveStrong bracelet and a ONE bracelet, because those are two charities I strongly believe in. They're always on my left wrist.

Play the Boo-Yay game. Tell us about a “boo” and a “yay” from the past week.
Boo--Let's see...not sure what's the bigger Boo - being sideswiped by a hit-and-run 18-wheeler making an illegal left turn onto Elm Hill Pike this morning, or needing an emergency battery change after running out of gas on I-40 Wednesday night. Neither one is very cool.
Yay--My dad coming out of surgery this morning well and happy (at least until he found out about Boo #1) Having a fun time last weekend in Atlanta. And hey, I came out of the side-swiping this morning without a scratch (well, to me.) That's worth a lot.

Back from vacation, but not back entirely

Atlanta was hot, but the convention is cool. More details later, maybe.

I'll be filling in as guest blogger for NashvilleIsTalking.com for the rest of the week. Make sure you check it out for the latest from me and the Nashville blogosphere, et. al.

When Home Hits You Smack in the Face

The thing about working in the news is that it sometimes takes a period of time for the subject that you're focusing on to sink in at a personal level. When a story breaks, you're busy covering it as quickly and accurately as possible, and then you need time to get over the exhaustion of dealing with it. Even when your coworkers get pulled into the story somehow, you're looking at it on a professional level to an extent. But eventually, if you have a morsel of human heart inside the cynical shell we have to put on, it hits you, and since you've seen so much in the course of covering the story, it sometimes hits you harder.

Today I had that moment with the destruction of Katrina. It was a day off, and I had a lot of very important personal things to do. But in the background, I had CNN on. In between tasks, I read my personal weblog of people I've grown to know on the internet, and heard heartbreak and anger and loss all over the place. Then I found out that at least one person I know, who was one of the first people in my memories of childhood, is - at the very least - unaccessable in the area. And over time, I started seeing all of those pictures and video and it crept in that no, this wasn't a faraway place where people I didn't really know about lived. And this wasn't an intentional act where I could lay my grief and anger down on a specific target. This was the toughest part of the cycle of life, a natural, unavoidable catastrophe, and it's playing out in a place that I know. I've been on that corner of Bourbon Street where the shop caught fire today in the middle of the flood waters. I've eaten Po-Boys in a little Mom-and-Pop joint in Biloxi that most likely is not even there anymore. I rode across the Gulf Coast multiple times, from Gulfport to Navarre Beach, when it was vacation time and my relatives wanted to see the beautiful sites of our heritage, from Jefferson Davis' home to the USS Alabama. And now if I am ever blessed to have another child, I won't be able to share that same experience with my kid. Even more awful, entire families aren't around to have ANY experiences, and a whole beautiful city has been, for all intents and purposes, lost. And as hard as it is to comprehend, it's even harder to stare that reality in the face.

There's so many thoughts jumbled up in my mind about this. I could put on my usual media analyst cap and critique the (mostly excellent) coverage on CNN, as well as the amazing coverage of WWL-TV under the worst of circumstances. I could link to a million sites that I've found with a mixture of information and devastation, where people are using the Internet to try to find each other and help each other. I could bitch about the President (however, the NYT did it for me.) I could go off on a rant about the rants that people have been posting all over the blogosphere. I could talk about Southerners and how we've lost everything before and rebuilt again. I could talk about how thankful I am to have what I have, and how ungrateful and unworthy I feel. I could even talk about hearing Alan Jackson's "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning" at Wal-Mart and almost falling to pieces. But I can't. Words don't fit anymore in any of this. And I don't feel like it's my place to say anything, or do more than try to support those whom I can. This is the one time in my life where I think that it's important to just stop and listen, and then grieve quietly. So I will.

Since I have no time right now to post about Katrina...

...I'm going to let my friend Ann's post about why people don't evacuate/why people live in those areas speak for me. She's from that area, and she's spot-on.

So why doesn't everyone just leave? It's not always possible to evacuate. You can be too old, too poor to have a car, too sick to move. You can be a tourist in the airport. You can be a storm-hardened native who's used to sitting out hurricanes in a Bourbon Street bar, watching lawn chairs hurtle by at chest height, barbequing everything in the freezer and drinking beer. Sometimes you go home to find nothing worse than a broken window and a power outage - if the storm hits at all. I remember being warned to evacuate back in 1998. Baton Rouge declared a two-day shutdown of all schools and businesses; everyone left work and went home to tape up windows and pack cars, and we got two days of muggy sunshine instead when the storm pirouetted into Texas.

And no, nobody has any sympathy for the stubborn ones who don't leave, especially the people who could and did leave when told. A rescue worker gets hurt or killed trying to save your sorry ass? It's better to just move out of state afterward.

So why doesn't everyone just move? Who's going to work the offshore oil refineries? Who's going to fish the shrimp, crabs, catfish, tilapia, redfish, drum, and oysters? Who's going to farm the rice and soybeans and sugarcane and corn? Who's going to man the chemical plants, deliver the fertilizer, ship the petroleum? Who's going to uproot an extended family and known way of life and move somewhere rife with tornadoes, earthquakes, and/or Yankees?

Her whole post is here. In the meantime, I'll be working on this.

EDIT: Now THIS is how you liveblog a disaster.

And per WWL's live coverage, people in Jefferson Parish are going to be allowed to go back to their homes for one day next week to collect as much stuff as they can, and then they'll have to leave and not come back for another MONTH. Wow.

The Beauty and the Horror of Nature

Proof that the scariest things in nature can be the most beautiful.

Obviously, this was not the saddest or most shocking event of the day, but CNN's Hurricane One was damaged in Gulfport. Awwwwww. I thought that pimped-out Hummer would make it!

Oh, and the Weather Channel's website had a 350% increase in traffic on Sunday. Wow.

EDIT 10:30 pm: Hearing Jeanne Meserve break down on a phoner while talking about the rescuers trying to save people in East New Orleans was the most heartbreaking interview I've heard since the tsunami. Between that and the unbelievable pictures and sad tales like our weatherman Justin Bruce's family losing five homes in flooding today, it's just overwhelming. If the area was spared the worst, I don't want to think about what the worst could've been. And once the pictures start coming out of Biloxi tomorrow, it'll probably be even more terrible. Sometimes me and others in the news biz may get lost in the drama of the action, but we never lose our hearts. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by this, and I truly hope that all those who are refugeed in Nashville right now have a place to go home to in a few days.

Crazy Reporter of the Day in Nola

I didn't see Anderson Cooper do anything slightly nuts during this hurricane. (Damn) But Brian Andrews from WFOR takes the cake (he's been on WWL's live streaming coverage here.) A pretty accurate description of his foray onto Canal Street in the middle of the storm is detailed here. Even I think he was absolutely insane, but it was damn good TV.

EDIT: The guy who ran out into water that was almost as deep as the overpass was high to save a stranded motorist wins #2. Gets extra points for being a Good Samaritan, but still #2.

In other news, Tennessee will probably get our first tropical storm in many years overnight. Make sure to keep an eye on NashvilleWX.com and WKRN.com's special section for the latest. /shameless pimp

Hurricane Katrina Coverage

In case you want to see hurricane coverage and not a New Orleans traffic report, here's some links to online coverage:

HurricaneNow
WDSU-TV (MSNBC has been simultcasting them a lot)
WWL-TV
WTIX-AM
WSAO-AM
And if you want a Louisiana soundtrack (i.e. business as usual) Radio Margaritaville or Mr. PoBoy

Also, two of my station's meteorogists are natives of the Nola area. They've got their own memories of Camille and Betsy, as well as how this is going to impact Middle Tennessee (we're under a tropical storm wind watch, y'all) at http://www.nashvillewx.com/ .

You know it's a bad storm when CNN's been doing phoners since this morning instead of live shots, and most of the correspondants are no closer than Gulfport (although CNN claims that Anderson Cooper will be doing coverage out of Nola...hurry up!)

My mom lived in N'awlins after graduating from college, and my cousin lived in Metarie and Kenner for years. I went down there a lot as a teen to visit, and it really is one of the prettiest places on earth. I just hope that it doesn't drown half of the Garden District (French Quarter also, but let's face it - you can drink and party anywhere.)

EDIT: According to Miles O'Brien's liveblogging of the storm (lucky!) CNN's live coverage of the actual landfall is moving to Baton Rouge, basically because they fear that their satellite truck will float away. Damn. I'm infamous for my desire to actually cover a hurricane on the coast, but this is one where I'm not really feeling the need to jump in my car and head south. Unless I could ride along in Hurricane One, that is.

Glad to see that other people are missing Anderson. Wonder what he might almost get hit by this go 'round? Hurricane glasses? A zydeco band? Or a floating riverboat casino?

Oh, and the best quote ever from Miles:
My iPod shuffled its way to Pete Fountain mid flight. Listening to "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans". Wish I was on my way to hoist a Hurricane from Pat O'Brien's - instead of covering one named Katrina.

Never been a huge Miles fan, but he just earned about a 1000 cool points for this one.

FYI. I sure would hate to be stuck somewhere where the authorities are telling you to have something that you could hack a hole in your ceiling with, just in case.

EDIT 2: My cats are going to all the doors and windows and growling at nothing. I know that animals have weird instinctive reactions to incoming weather. I wonder if Katrina is already causing something to make this happen.

And hoo boy, that live shot of WVUE's parking lot is really exciting, y0. Yes, I know I'm bitchy and that news crews have no business being anywhere near a coastline right now. But after watching the World's Longest Traffic Jam all day, I feel a wee bit whiny about it.

Just what any grieving family needs...

Thanks to Big Orange Michael, I now know that the dishonorable Fred Phelps is paying a visit to our lovely Midstate on Saturday to bring his brand of "protest" to the funerals of two 278th soldiers killed in Iraq a weekend ago. If you don't know who Mr. Phelps is (I refuse to call him "Reverend", because there's nothing about him that is worthy of reverence) here's a good place to read about him. I won't link his website, since I also refuse to give him the satisfaction of anymore website hits from me. I hate very few people on this earth, but he comes the closest of anyone else I can think of.

In his infinite lack of wisdom, radio host Steve Gill wants the Southern Baptist Convention to speak out against Phelps and protest against him on Saturday. First off, Phelps' "congregation" (almost solely made up of the families of 9 of his 13 kids) is Primitive Baptist. To associate his church with the SBC is like saying that the Church of Christ and the Mormon Church are the same thing since they both have "Church of Christ" in their religion's names. Secondly, this would not be a protest against Fred Phelps - this would be a protest against anti-war sentiment. And even if these cretins have chosen the absolute worst place to protest at, they have a right to do it, just like they've had the right to protest at Matthew Shephard's funeral and at countless gay events and organizations without Gill batting an eyelash. And if the SBC even gave Phelps the time of day, they'd be getting him the publicity he craves. If anyone shows up for this idiotic display, I'd be in favor of a response much like they got at the Shephard funeral, where "angels" blocked the protesters from the family's view without a word.

What I want to know is - where can I go to protest both ends of this continuing political hot air? I don't like the war at all, but I'm sick to death of the shouting from both sides. Does anyone truly think that Cindy Sheehan's little sit-in in Crawford is going to bring our troops home? At the same time, does anyone believe that digging up as much dirt as possible on her is going to change anyone's mind? I don't know about anyone else, but this crap isn't debate - this is the equivalent of an internet flame war. I don't want to hear anything else about how each side is eviler than the other. I want a solution. And this ain't the way to get one.

Why am I thinking of breaking news at 11 pm?

Obviously, I'm not a cable-company exec, so I don't know how these deals work. And I'm sure that there aren't a lot of people ready to picket the MetroCenter offices of Comcast because they don't have certain obscure channels on their digital package that other area cable companies who are supposedly far inferior carry. But dammit, I want CNN International! If nothing else, I'd just like it so that I could get live coverage of a 6.8 earthquake in Japan instead of a repeat of NASCAR Night on "Larry King Live".

Plus CNN/I actually has continuing coverage during nighttime (for the US) and weekend hours. CNN-US has just recently figured out that people with hangovers on Saturday morning don't want to hear about how much money they're not making with economics shows, so they're gone, but I did not want to hear about Angelina Jolie's love life all weekend on the same rerun of "People in the News". Plus there are other channels I'd like to see again, like Trio (is it still around?) If I can have five versions of VH-1, can't I have these two? Please?

Better Late Than Never

I was planning to liveblog (or something like it) Friday's Titans preseason game vs. the Bucs. But I ended up falling asleep (hey, it was boring) and then wasn't up to it for the rest of the weekend. But here's the highlights:

- Y'know Eddie George wasn't bad at play-by-play. You could tell it was his first game, because he stumbled at places and exclaimed at others, just like he was cheering his teammates down on the field. But he knew what he was talking about, was able to provide decent play analysis, and had pretty good insight. And it was nice to see the fans give him a standing O when he was announced. It doesn't matter where he ends up in the end - Eddie's gonna be a Titan in Nashville's hearts forever.
- Eddie also did a pretty nice tap-dancing job on the Pacman Jones controversy. I wonder if they send all NFL players to a 1-2 day seminar on how to handle media controversies about other players. In a related vein, it was kinda amusing to hear Floyd Reese and some ESPN guy on the radio pregame saying "Boy's done lost it" without actually saying the words. I've heard Reese talk a lot over the years, and I heard a particular tone in his voice that is pretty rare. If Pacman was listening, he would've done well to start driving up from Florida to camp, because he's just about depleted all the patience that the team has for him.
- Defense: looks better than last year, but that's not saying much. Offense: It's gonna take a few weeks for them to figure out Chow's new system, but McNair looked like he had more breathing room than last year (I swear that wasn't an awful sternum pun.)
- John Dwyer and Cory Curtis looked like the Doublemint Twins. Cute!
- Nothing was more priceless than watching Jon Gruden have a hissy fit when the game went into OT.

In other non-Titans related stuff.
- Courtesy of my BIL, imagery of a plane being hit by lightning (no, no one was hurt.)
- It's weird hearing your mid-childhood favorite song (courtesy of Mom's album collection) for the first time in years on a Bounce commercial. It's "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows" by Lesley Gore, and I can guarantee that there's not such a thing as a MP3 of it.

Memeage

Aloha Friday
Do you have any phobias?
I am very much afraid of rats. I'm also not very fond of snakes, but I'll take those any day over rats.

What’s your favorite summer movie so far this year?
"Batman Begins". No Michael, I'm not ripping off your answer.

Spread the spirit of blog aloha & pick someone off your blogroll for us to visit!
Okay, first I'll recommend Michael at Big Orange Michael. But since he also recommended me, I feel obligated to recommend another person also, so I'll point you toward my author friend Elizabeth Donald's new blog, although she doesn't update it enough. *grump*

Friday's Feast
Appetizer
Did you sleep good last night?
Pretty decently, or as well as I ever do (BTW, Lunestra really does make you want to sleep for 8 hours; however, four of those hours are after you have to get up in the morning, so another sleep aid bites the dust.) I had a dream about my own version of "A Girl in the Cafe'".

Soup
What is your current computer desktop image?
Believe it or not, a very gorgeous picture of the Nashville skyline taken by my ex-husband about two years ago. It's gotten so many compliments and requests for copies from coworkers that I hate to take it down. At home, I have a Green Wing screen, because I am still obsessed.

Salad
When was the last time you planted something, what was it and where did it go?
I planted some petunias last year in a garden box out on my tiny patio. They were very pretty. However, someone knocked the planter off of my ledge over the winter and I haven't been able to pick it up with all the soil inside to redo it this year.

Main Course
What's your favorite condiment?
Mustard. The spicier, the better.

Dessert
Share a quote that you like, for whatever reason..
Okay, here's where I'm going to take this to the next level. Earlier today, I wanted to do a "Lyrics Friday" post but didn't get any response, so I took it down. After an outcry from my public (hah!) I'm putting it back up.

And it starts like this we crave to be kissed
by a moment complete in its happiness
Far away from the things that we wish to escape
that lead us to think we are not awake
We are ourselves despite ourselves
this place gets smaller as the universe swells
We come to terms eventually, eventually, eventually.
I am not the only cowboy in this one horse metaphor
And I am not the only life guard who's
washed up on the shore

Now it's your turn to share lyrics. Funny or thoughtful, doesn't matter. Put them in comments.

For the future

Remind me never to harbor fugitives in my apartment, because I sure would hate for my housekeeping skills to be featured on the front page of CNN.com.

My periodic letter to CNN

Dear CNN,

I would like to personally thank you for devoting 1 1/2 hours of breaking news coverage to the wrapup of the Kingston courthouse shootings. I also appreciate that it was actually breaking when you covered it, and not after the fact (read: the last London incident, where we heard "there's reports of unknown incidents in the London Underground" for at least an hour from Nic Robinson while Fox was smoking your ass on the details.) And I'm glad that Aaron Brown was on the desk, because he's at his best during this situation (idea: trade him to ABC to anchor WNT, which tracks an older demographic, and move Anderson Cooper to the 9 CST slot, when young adults might actually want to watch the news. *awaits flames*)

Oh, and "The Situation Room"? Not so much. Why do you have Wolf anchoring that? That would've been a prime place to have Bill Hemmer in to generate some heat with Kyra. But wait, he jumped ship to Fox because you wanted to make him move to D.C. Sorry. But in any case, it's tinkering time. "American Morning" isn't completely unwatchable anymore, so maybe take some lessons there.

In any case, it was nice to see two local and stellar PIO and director types (Jennifer Johnson and Mark Gwyn) get some national airtime on your network tonight. So thanks for stepping it up on this one. And keep it up, please.

Your fan still (although London2 made me waver a bit),
-D

Punkman needs to go

I have been stewing over a post about the Titans' illustrious first-round pick and current holdout for a few days now. But today Big Orange Michael wrote it for me, almost word-for-word. Thanks, Michael!

Just one addition - a response to Pacman's agent's latest statement about his client:

"Adam cares very much about his teammates, and they care about him."

Yeah, there's nothing like (allegedly) picking a fight with the QB's buddy to show you really care. And why in the heck should they care about him? Because he managed to be on the field during a couple of days of minicamp? If he wants his teammates to give a s&*% about him, he needs to grow up and get his butt into training camp.

For every loss, there is hope

Sunday night, Peter Jennings died following a battle against lung cancer. Today, Dana Reeves announced her own battle against the disease. And those are only two of the thousands of stories that could be told in this country, much less worldwide. Most of them stay silent.

I would daresay that everyone reading this has been affected by cancer on some level. My grandfather had prostate cancer and died two years ago of lymphoma. My great-grandmother died of cervical cancer before I was born. My dad has precancerous lesions that are the precursors of the same lymphoma that killed my grandfather. For many others, their losses and battles are more personal. But for others, there are stories of survival.

Yesterday, at the end of one of his stories, one of our reporters mentioned his own battle with cancer - something that none of us in the newsroom knew about. Today when I commended him on his remarks, he told us that he has survived both testicular and lung cancer, and has been cancer-free since 2002. He has been at this station for as long as I have, but had never talked about his previous illness before. Before yesterday, when a journalist whom he admired died of the disease that he'd fought, and he knew it was important to stand up and tell his story.

That's a reminder that for as many people who don't win their own battles against cancer, there are survivors. Just like a lot of the people who die, their names aren't known, but they bear the scars just like the survivors of any war. And as researchers continue to look for treatments and vaccines and other methods to end the fight, more and more people can stand up and say that they are cancer-free. They can stand as examples of where money has saved lives, and will save more. Like, hopefully, Dana Reeve's.

I've worn a LiveStrong bracelet for months, but like most ornaments, it had lost its meaning a bit. Now I plan on making another donation to cancer research and support - not only in memory of Peter Jennings and the other people we've lost, but in support of Mike Browning and the other people who are still around. And I hope that everyone takes this opportunity to learn more about what you can do to make cancer history instead of reality.

LiveStrong
American Cancer Society
Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center
Sarah Cannon Cancer Center
Cancer Research UK
Gilda's Club

Good night, Peter

Peter Jennings lost his battle with lung cancer tonight. It apparently wasn't a shock to his colleagues, but it was to me. When I saw his last broadcast around six months ago, when his voice was hoarse and weak but he was in consumate anchor form, I never thought that would be the end for him. I fully expected for him to be back in that anchor chair again,

Goodbye, Peter. Many of us will never forget what we've learned from you. You were truly one of the people in news that was an example of class, of humility, and for putting the value of truth above all else.

(And on a related-yet-unrelated note, finding this out right after watching Nate's funeral on SFU sucked. There's also been a lot of loss this week elsewhere within my family. Today at church, after lighting a candle for a little girl who died way too soon, I found a poem inside of the "Singing the Living Tradition" hymnal by e.e. cummings. I'm fairly sure this is the correct one. )

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
wich is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Dayum

I always expected Jim Carville to do this, but not Bob Novak. Maybe if this had happened a year ago, Jon Stewart wouldn't have had to bitch out Crossfire for being wusses. And wasn't it a shame that happened just before the interviewer was planning to ask him about the CIA leak. *feigns shock*

Blogging elsewhere today

If anyone reads this who doesn't read Nashville Is Talking regularly, I'm filling in for the resident blogger today. Come over there and tell us what you think.

Random thoughts about the CMA Fan Fest special

- Gee, I've gotta get out more. Somehow I've never seen Rascal Flatts playing down on Lower Broad, much less any of those legends they listed. Weird.
- No fair showing us your nice abs now, Big Kenny. You're off the market. Take the guitar and let John Rich show off his stuff (yes, I have a thing for those guys. No one understands it at the station. I don't understand it.)
- It's rare when there's a song you absolutely hate, but another singer sells it to you. Wynonna did that with that "I Could Only Imagine", which was formerly on my list of must-switch-stations songs. But she did it quite nicely. However, I switched over to Rock Star: INXS a short time later and discovered that the same approach doesn't work for Creed songs, which I will always hate, no matter if their lead singer is no longer over-emoting it.
- The whole segment with Alan Jackson and the NYPD firemen was one of the nicest things of the whole night. I've always liked Alan because he's "just folks" and doesn't pretend otherwise, and him meeting the firefighters was just real.
-Who was that blonde chick on after Dierks Bentley? Never seen her and probably never will again.
- Dierks has one of those faces that looks like a dozen guys from your hometown, paired with the curls of a angelic blonde toddler. He's also kinda my neighbor, since he apparently lives on a boat on Percy Priest. Dierks, if you ever run outta sugar or flour and need to borrow some from a neighbor, lemme know...
- The girl who would choose Rodney Carrington over Kenny Chesney needs some new glasses. I didn't even remember who he was till he reminded us he has a show on the network...
- Not sure what I think about Gretchen Wilson's new single yet. But I have that reaction to her in general. She grows on me slowly, like kudzu.
- It's very strange to be watching this show at the same time as "Rock Star: INXS". Kinda like walking from a honky-tonk to a goth club.