The Washington Canard

WEEKEND UPDATE

When I wake up tomorrow morning, it will be snowing. Capital Weather forecasts 6"-10" inches:

A Heavy Snow Warning is in effect for the entire area. The low pressure system in the Gulf of Mexico is strengthening faster than forecast by the models, and its large shield of precipitation has dead aim on our area.

Excellent. After a mild December and a May-like January, we're finally getting a real winter.

Somebody I went to school with from middle school through college, Jason Wicklund, was killed in a car accident this past week. I was never friends with him, but we were always friendly when we ran into each other on campus in Eugene. His obituary in the Oregonian is here. His philosophy department website has been updated to explain the unusual accident. My best to his family. Another unwelcome of reminder our mortality.

In much better news, Bryan from the E-R-C is back stateside as of a few nights ago, and he'll finally be ex-military as of late May. He called me from Killeen, Texas, where he was driving around looking for a new apartment. I expect he'll be blogging more frequently these days, at his current blog and perhaps new ones.

Two new blogs will be added to the blogroll just as soon as I get around to it: Frank Conry and Mark Hemingway, two friends from the UO who now call DC home, have entered the blogosphere. Frank writes at Non-Fat Latte Liberal, and Mark, fittingly enough, at MarkHemingway.com. Plus, an old college roommate of mine mades the front page of the New York Times this weekend (the second bylined reporter, not the Numa Numa kid).

Two students have been arrested in the Great Cardozo High Mercury Spill of '05:

District public health officials, police and firefighters clad in white biohazard suits descended yesterday afternoon on the homes of the students, who live a few blocks apart in the Park View and Columbia Heights neighborhoods. In one home, officials said, firefighters found "low levels of mercury" in the air and concentrations of mercury in the pocket of a jacket stuffed in a closet.

The film version of "Jarhead" is on the way later this year. Meanwhile, the IMDb message boards are hopping with Marine veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, including a few who knew author Anthony Swofford. Most of the opinion runs very strongly against Swofford's account. In a 3,000-word comment, one Sgt. Rock fisks the book page-by-page and declares: "It's very special and reading it makes me cry, pee my pants and want to put earrings in." It makes sense, trust me.

Back to the NYT for a second — Pinch Sulzberger swung by the Poynter Institute last week, where he said: "I hear more complaints that the newspaper is in the pocket of the Bush administration than that it is too liberal." Er, that's not what your public editor said. Sulzberger's comment strikes me as perilously close to the Manhattan parochialism of Pauline Kael's famous quote: "I don't see how Nixon could have won. I don't know anyone who voted for him."

Others ask, what's the matter with Kansas? I ask, what's the matter with Jersey?

By now you've probably seen the contents of Paris Hilton's cell phone, and if you're like me, you've wondered two things: do all celebrities really use T-Mobile? And does she really trade e-mails with Stephen King? And if you're like me, your favorite entry is:

Aid, Rite
323-876-4466

It's almost Oscar time! I think I'll catch a bit of Chris Rock and then go to bed.

posted by WWB at 8:22 PM |