Good Afternoon everyone.

I like the idea of Joshua Bell being a party to a Pulitzer.

Yes, me too, DotC. Pearls before Breakfast is one of my favorite pieces ever. I know I e-mailed it to a lot of folks and put a link on my family website where it was a huge hit.
I'm very happy for GW and the WaPo in general.

I've become a fan of Pearlstein's columns and discussions, and was amazed that his background is apparently strictly journalism. Didn't he recently write that he never taken an economics course? He's learned a lot on the job.

Nice to see the six-Pulitzer story on the NY Times' web front page.

I recall once reading a memoir by Ted Ogilvy, the celebrated advertising maven. If memory serves me, he worked for a time in the kitchen of a busy (and fairly elite?) Paris restaurant, and credited the experience as a discipline-developer. This was long before the age of celebrity chefs.

Hope Wapo's business side can pick up some more readers and subscribers after winning 6 Pulitzers.

I'm sure Gene truly appreciates Joel refering to him as a grandfather figure. ;-)

Hi, Pacifica!

Love the Josh Bell story. And I'm sure Gene W will appreciate Joel's reference to him as a grandfather figure - ha!

We've got to come up with a name for boodling the exact same thing at the same time! Simul-boodling, maybe.

I may have to steal shamelessly from Vince Lombardi here:

Reporting and writing aren't two of the most important things in journalism. They are the ONLY things in journalism. All the rest is crap. Congratulations all around.

I think everybody knew from about Day Two onward that Dana Priest and Anne Hull had accomplished something outstanding; the same might be true of Gellman and Becker as well. I hate to spritz a little rain on Weingarten's parade, but I thought his Great Zucchini story was even better. But no question he deserves a Pulitzer. (And no question Shroder gets an "assist," just for putting up with Weingarten.)

But there is a larger, greater reason why the Post just wracked up six Pulitzers: its Graham-led management and corporate ethos, its culture: almost alone of all the newspapers in this country, it understands its own business, and properly recruits and nurtures its staff. A thing like this will never happen at the LA Times, or Newsday, or the WSJ. Once upon a time it might have happened at the NYT, but I don't think anymore it can.

The Post lets a maniac like Weingarten run around loose, because it (alone) understands that he isn't really a maniac; he is a maniacal craftsman of the first order. And it gives him a place to run around loose, because things like the Great Zucchini story and the Bell story and the 24-hour marathon pundit story come out of him. The poop/VPL commentary is just a (you should pardon the phrase) a byproduct.

(The other thing the WaPo does is it gives a guy like Joel room to maneuver and a blog like this one, and tolerates the madness of its Boodlers. What other newspaper would be nuts enough to do that?)

Well done, well done. A good day for the newsroom (and boy, are they rare in that business).

Great photo on the home page showing a lot of the gang in the newsroom, with Len Downey on the far light (I think).

Oh, and a Front Page Alert, right under the photo. But I don't think we'll have to resort to the bunker.

I'm not sure, but that might be Dana Priest, just behind Downey's head. If so, one of the women getting the hug might be Anne Hull.

Judging from the online reaction to the story at the time, the Weingarten article had a great cyberspace "Hey, Martha" effect. Everybody read it or talked about it.

I even used as a taking off point for busking in general.

http://livebythefoma.blogspot.com/2007/04/ring-my-bell.html

While in London, we rode The Tube a lot and they have a lot of licensed buskers in there. My wife wondered what would happen if a really famous person just went in and set up. I told her that its been done.

I agree, and congrats to everyone for well-earned recognition.

That said, maybe the Post should reconsider its commitment to Milbank's "Washington Sketch"-- it's just a patronizing, superficial snark that is really a waste of salary and prime newspaper space. The Post shouldn't try to be the Daily Show-- it should try to be a newspaper.

Congratulations to the Post, and thanks to Joel for pointing out what should be the obvious: at its most basic, a newspaper is about its reporting, writing and editing. The pleasure of reading a well-crafted piece of any kind is unparalled and increasingly rare. When that joy is ocupled with relevant and newsworthy subject matter, well, gosh - maybe it is worth a Pulitzer. Or six.

Congrats to the WaPo. Makes those of us who still believe in dead-tree reading take heart that maybe doomsday is yet a little way off. The blessing and the curse of the internet is that it is almost totally unscripted and unedited. Someone with sheen of authority can put something scandalous but totally fabricated out there where it can make a big splash. But oftentimes the debunking only occurs in the print rags, where not so many people will see it these days. 'Tis a brave new world out there in the ether. Gonna take a good while to sort it all out.

Indeed, congrats to everyone! Great work all around and much appreciated.

Congratulations to the WaPo! You were due. I have to say that after scouring the net for the best online paper to read, the WaPo came up first. It is hands-down the best thing on the net. News reporting out here is lame at best so I read the biggies on both coasts with the Post being the first each morning.

Here's a really amazing thing: this fine, multi-Pulitzer-winning newspaper has permitted several of us shlubs to write a bit for what is clearly its premier blog. Makes me feel all tingly.

For the record, here are the names of the reporters who worked on the Virginia Tech Pulitzer-winning stories: Ian Shapira (2 stories), Tom Jackman, Alec MacGillis (2), Adam Kilgore, Michael Ruane (2), Jose Antonio Vargas, Brigid Schulte, Sari Horowitz, Tamara Jones (2), and David Maraniss.

Unnamed are the desk editors and copy editors who undoubtedly earned "assists."

Gonna be a lot of hangovers in the newsroom tomorrow.

A hearty congratulations to the Washington Post for its Pulitzers... and even more for the excellent reporting (and yes, editing) that is a constant with the Post. I have been extremely concerned with other newspaper's removal of serious reporting and I've hoped the Post won't do the same. We desperately need to continue this kind of reporting! It would be a shame if the Post was the only newspaper worthy of receiving Pulitzers.

I once took a class on writing for the web, and the instructor made the erroneous statement that a person wouldn't want to read a newspaper days after it was published because it would be "old news". Good, in-depth writing in a newspaper is worth reading even weeks later. The best stories are usually the longest ones that allow for the details that give the reader the more complete picture. Sound-byte news, repeating the same superficial statements over and over and trying their best to get everyone to be angry, will be the death of the American mind. Thank goodness we still have the Washington Post, NPR, and PBS. Keep up the good work!

Huzzah!

Some other Pulitzer winners (note the very last entry) (credit: AP Wire copy):

Fiction: "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," by Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books)

Drama: "August: Osage County," by Tracy Letts

History: "What Hath God Wrought: the Transformation of America, 1815-1848," by Daniel Walker Howe (Oxford University Press)

Biography: "Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father," by John Matteson (W.W. Norton)

Poetry: "Time and Materials," by Robert Hass (Ecco/HarperCollins) and "Failure," by Philip Schultz (Harcourt)

General Nonfiction: "The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945," by Saul Friedlander (HarperCollins)

MUSIC: "The Little Match Girl Passion," by David Lang, premiered Oct. 25, 2007, at Carnegie Hall, New York. (G. Schirmer, Inc.)

SPECIAL CITATION: Bob Dylan

Getting that self-satisfied feeling known to sports fans when their team wins the series, cup, bowl game or whatever. We won!!

Since '05 I've vainly tried to switch loyalties to the Mpls. Strib or the St. Pete Times, or the Tampa Trib, but I still ask Mr. F for just one gift when he travels to the DC area. I don't care how old it is by the time it finally gets to me, a dead tree edition of the WaPo is worth savoring. Congrats all around!

Does anyone else see a certain flyaway hair resemblance between J Bell and J Achenbach?

Congratulations to the reporters and writers for their outstanding work. What will be remembered far longer, however, is how the Post's careerist editors and neoconservative Editorial Board supported the Bush administration as it lied the country's way to a disasterous war.

Joel is going to be awfully lonely getting snubbed by all the kids at the prize winners' table in the cafeteria. I mean Robin Gihvan has one. If she can get one, Cracker Jack prizes must be tougher to win. It's easier to list the WaPo writers that don't have one. I bet Hax has one and just doesn't tell anyone.

And what does Weingarten really do? His weekly column uses all the white space gimmicks middle school creative writing class teachers have caught onto: phone call transcripts, doggerel poetry, typographic tricks.

He moderates a dirty joke/YouTube link forum once a week. His chatters set him up with all the straight lines. He has canned responses for the poll all lined up. Chatwoman does all the heavy lifting with the links.

He writes three, maybe four, articles a year for WaPo magazine tops. He whines and moans and cancels chats whenever he has a real deadline. And then he claims all his good work gets spiked by Shroder. Yeah, right.

He better be winning Pulitzers, he sure doesn't seem to be doing much of anything else.

The Pulitzers are wonderful, and Joel's blog item helped show just are great they are.

Congratulations!!!

Why not expose Barry Obama for the fraud he is, and pick up another Pulitzer for doing it?

Dave Barry's reaction to Weingarten's award:

"The main reason I wound up working at The Miami Herald in the early eighties was that I was wooed by a brilliant, funny and clinically insane editor named Gene Weingarten. We became close friends, and we remained close even after Gene went to The Washington Post, where he eventually became a columnist and feature writer.

Click here for the rest:

http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/2008/04/gene-weingarten.html

Er, Curmudgeon - wrack?

Congratulations to the Post reporters! these are honors well-deserved. And yes, original investigative reporting is the heart and soul of journalism. One hopes it will continue to be so. Where journalism really needs a new business model is in distribution mechanisms and such.

Congrats to all the Post winners!

I enjoyed the chat today on Tom Sietsema's article on restaurant noise. This comment in particular stood out:

"I've often wondered why restaurants don't invest in simple lightweight domes or shells over tables that could be suspended from unobtrusive overhead wires, providing an acoustic bubble for the people underneath."

Paging Maxwell Smart! Deploy the Cone of Silence!

Congratulatory champagne and donuts being served in The Bunker.

What a day for the Washington Post! I'll bet Eugene Meyer, Phil Graham, and Katharine Graham are all looking down with tears of joy in their eyes.

In many ways, this is better than the accolades after Watergate.

This is truly a world-class newspaper.

Nice column, Joel, but you didn't address the business-model question. Do Pulitzers translate into more readers? (Umm, no.) And if they don't, does that mean that the market doesn't reward quality, or that there's no mass audience for it?
I'm the last guy to argue that newspapers should care less about good reporting and editing. That's the only differentiator between them and bloggers who don't do any original-source work. But the prolonged decline in newspaper circulation overall suggests that quality journalism is becoming a niche product, which puts companies like yours (and mine) in an awful bind: it costs a ton to do good work, but there don't seem to be a lot of people willing to pay for it any more. Unless, of course, you want to argue that it's just a marketing or packaging problem....
So congratulations to the Post for the recognition it received from its industry peers. Let's just hope the awards matter to the general public.

I don't copy edit my own stuff, nellie. (And I've always loudly proclaimed the folly of doing so.)

The Post does still produce that tabloid-size weekly edition. I must not be the last subscriber.

Why does Joel have to address the business model question?

And do Pulitzers translate into more readers? Yes. Maybe not a lot, but some. And a couple of other assertions you made about the newspaper business are wrong or misguided, Jon. (Healey is an editorial writer, columnist and blogger for the LA Times; he specializes in IT, business and entertainment issues.)

Note that the Post got skunked on op-ed. No Pulitzer for Fred Hiatt or for any of the neo-con-artists whose weekly posts make even the most amateurish blogs look good. Until these people are gone, the Post's op-ed pages will continue to drag down the quality of the rest of the paper.

"Why not expose Barry Obama for the fraud he is, and pick up another Pulitzer for doing it?"

Because they're still working on Dick Cheney and George Bush.

Of all the things I miss since leaving DC, no void is greater than that spot on my front porch that does NOT contain my WaPo. So faithfully each day-7/365, I read it online (can't even pay $6 to read the Sunday Post at the bookstore anymore). I'm so proud of my hometown paper's Pulitzers. So is Queen Katherine in publisher heaven. Congratulations all around from Louisville!

Congrats to the Post, the very first name i timidly typed in on this thing called a computer and I actually got the Washington
Post. I am an unabashed fan and have loved newspapers since grade school. Have freelanced to a few Wyoming and Colorado papers over the years.

Watergate coverage and the books that followed and made me a believer.

Calls for drinks after work...

Barack (not Barry) Obama is a fraud? Feel free to break the news here and pick up your own Pulitzer. After all, that would be a powerful piece of political reporting, surely worthy of a Pulitzer, proof that one of the most remarkable political ascensions in years is due to fraud and artifice. Present your evidence. If you have only your intuition, then you're as bad as Bush looking into Putin's soul, or Cheney proclaiming "we know" that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling WMD's -- you have your revelation that he is evil, now all you need is to perceive the evidence. Kinda crazy.

...sorry for the repetitions..mea culpa

Congrats to the Post on the prizes... but that Weingarten article was a fraud.

It was a set up for failure. Had he staged it at the Dupont Circle south entrance in the evening rush hour, where I've seen people milling around a classical pianist student with an amplified keyboard, the result would've been the opposite. Bell would've been mobbed if not recognized, as would certainly have been the case at Foggy Bottom.

8am at L'Enfant Plaza? This is hardcore federal bureaucrat turf: people there get written up if they're 5 mintues late to their desks.

Weingarten knew the result he wanted to write about and set up the experiment to obtain it.

A fraud.

Congratulations to all the Pulitzer Prize winners and WaPo for harbouring their ilk.
I had just finished Gene's article and read Barry's reaction when I looked out of my front window and spotted two wild turkeys strutting down the road. I'll have to consult my spiritual advisor as to any deep meaning.

Jon Healey, thanks for jumping in. You're right, I didn't address the business model. I just think we need to remember what it is that we do well. I hope great journalism doesn't become a niche product. We're lucky here to have enlightened ownership and a company with a bottom line bolstered by Kaplan.

Gunde, I'm going to help you out here and zap a few of the redundancies...No big deal, it happens to the best of us.

Compliments to the Post via a Canadian news magazine (Washington Bureau)

http://forums.macleans.ca/advansis/?mod=for&act=dis&eid=21&so=&ps=&sb=

svreader has posted over 60 times that poor people froze to death and died in slums owned by Tony Rezko, an event that has escaped the notice of the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, and every other newspaper in America that has assigned someone to Obama. He claim has been challenged multiple times and he never provided substantiation. His credibility should be assessed accordingly.

JA and GW belong to the same class- the diff is in the outlook- the same diff between a microscope and telescope- howling and singing. I enjoy looking at life from all solid angles. Particularly nice when out of focus.

Congrats to you all at WP

Yes, It is the reporting that really matters!

Congradulation to the Post reporting team for winning six in a row!

I always suspect that the Journalism in the cheap with all the internet and entertainment centric fluffy news will drive the real Journalism out of business, Post confirms that this will not be the case.

A real win for the shoe leather journalism!

Dylan got a "special music citation". Kind of like a Lifetime Achievement award, I guess. This is from the AP:
Dylan's citation noted his "profound impact on popular music and American culture."

Congratulations Post! I, too, am an expat, currently living in LA and believe me, it took several years to begin to appreciate the LA Times' charms. I, too, miss opening up the paper and seeing my favorite columns but am so grateful the Post is online. I especially appreciate the rigorous Post standards -- especially today as the AP, and all outlets relying on them for breaking stories, reported that Mark Penn "left" or "resigned" or "quit" the Clinton campaign yet the Clinton announcement said he'll be staying on, just doing polling and giving advice. The Post doesn't make mistakes like that. I trust your paper and enjoy the efforts put in to getting the story right. And since I do alot of online reading these days, I gotta tell you that the Post, especially in campaign coverage, has been head and shoulders above other formerly respected organizations that have altered their motto "all the hmmm, that's fit to print." I couldn't tell you the endorsements of the Post if you held a gun to my head, but the Times' informs every aspect of their reporting. Thanks for maintaining objectivity.

Anyone gonna notice or acknowledge the fact that an increasing number of Pulitzers are being won by a decreasing number of large news organizations at the same time that smaller papers contract and ad revenues across the board plummet?
Sure nice if you can "smoke 'em if you got 'em" in the news biz. By that I mean, it's sure nice to throw yourself into a piece in an attempt to win an award when you have the time and resources. Maybe all that money large news organizations throw into their Pulitzer packages should be redistributed like in the NFL to organizations in smaller markets that cannot hold their own financially.
I mean it's all about upholding the ideal of the Fourth Estate, right?

*quietly gives Master of the Obvious directions to the nearest de-tox clinic. We care about you, pal.*

omyobama, it's better that you get let down gently, rather than catastrophically: even the WaPo makes mistakes, and has occasionally posted headlines that are wrong or misleading, and so on. The Post ran the AP obit for Heston, which called him 83; the photo caption called him 86; the Post obit called him 83 also; but NPR called him 84. Somebody's wrong. Mistakes get made, sometimes inconsequential (like the age of Charlton Heston), sometimes mistakes that matter. That's why it's refreshing to read Kurtz' Media Notes column in the WaPo, which scrutinizes the Post as well as other media for errors and blind spots. The willingness to engage in self-examination and self-critique is one of the things that makes the WaPo a great paper.

The Post should get a Pulitzer for letting John Solomon leave the Post for the Moonie mouthpiece the Washington Times.

Boko, multiple wild turkey sightings are usually preludes to visions. It doesn't seem to matter if they are neat or on the rocks. Let us know how it turns out.

Congratulations WP for your excellent journalism. Thank you also - - because of your excellent reporting, it's given me the passion to wake up and get involved and question government and our current leadership!

SGlover wrote:

"Besides, though I rather doubt it, there's a slight chance that WaPo "talent" actually looks in on these comments from time to time. I think it's useful that they have some idea of just how little trust or confidence they rate among their readers."

Again, S, I couldn't agree more, but I read somewhere that the Ombudsman said there are reporters who NEVER read the comments here and there are only a few who do. I should think that for every article that comes out on the Post website, that article's author and editor be required to read a percentage of the comments, for feedback and critiquing purposes. I can't tell you how many times I have caught factual inaccuracies here, like "the Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of the world's Buddhists" a gross inaccuracy which is something very simple to fact check, yet it wasn't done. No one bothers to correct on-line inaccuracies, even when pointed out repeatedly to the authors on-line. And some of these articles, like those of Sally Quinn and her friend Anne Kornblut, defy description for their silly meaningless drivel, that sound more like idle Hamptons cocktail chatter, given the sloppiness of the article. Articles by Dan Eggen and Jerry Markon are all suck-up to the Justice Department pieces that always seem to leave out key points or more importantly key figures (that's because they're too busy sucking up to them so they can get more scoop for future articles) which we only find out by reading other news sources-particularly the AP wire services-and McClatchy-who do particularly good factual reporting on breaking news stories.

Case in point: Look at that creepy, eerie photograph of HRC and the meaningless drivel article that is attached to it-that has been sitting there prominently displayed on the Post's front page for two days-what the eff is the purpose of such a hideous, shadowy photograph huh? If you did one of Obama, also, that would be different, but it would have engendered immediate outrage, so that was OUT OF THE QUESTION FOR THE POST-WHO HAS TO DEFER ALWAYS TO SAINT OBAMA. I've seen absolutely nothing like that photograph on all the many papers I read on-line, where there are articles that excoriate Hillary Clinton, but no photos, nothing so hideous as what is on the front page right now; nothing that approaches the Post's collective sloppy factual reporting. It's a shame really, it should be so much better, and I only mean not so bad, because it's very easy to be better than the bottom of the barrel.

Master of the Obvious, the obvious way to accomplish your goal of redistributing wealth from large newspapers to small ones is for the large newspapers to purchase and to operate the small ones. Even if they do not formally purchase them, funding them makes the large papers the de facto publishers of the small ones. The problem is that it eliminates editorial independence. One of the problems afflicting the industry today is clearly that fewer and fewer hands own more and more papers. That's fine, so long as the owners are paragons of virtue. I prefer to place my trust in the old-fashioned principle of competition, so that each paper serves its own interests best by competing against the others for readers, money, and stories. The disappearance of small papers looks to be because small papers are the first to die as the whole newspaper industry is squeezed, not just the small ones. A sinking tide grounds all boats.

FARFALLE44, that photo connects to a Sunday Op-Ed piece. That's why it has a long shelf-life. It's not daily reporting. The photo is not photo-journalism in this case, it is an illustration that is intended to have a symbolic meaning that connects to an opinion piece. Perhaps you have become convinced that the Post bows to "Saint Obama" because you don't read very carefully. The Post and other reputable papers do, in fact, report on Obama in non-fawning terms. Why do you think you know anything about Tony Rezko? Because real journalists, not permanently-outraged political bloggers, reported and wrote the stories.

SGlover may have written what you quote, but perhaps you could tell us where. It wasn't posted in this blog.

Perhaps the reason many writers do not read the on-line comments is because so few commenters take the trouble to read the article before commenting, and even fewer take the time to write well. I have looked at some of those comments, and it's just a cesspool of incomplete thinking, insults, griping, and generally poor writing. There are a few pearls, but it's clear that most of the on-line comment threads are a waste of time to read. If writers want informed commentary, they have editors for that purpose. If you would like to see the comments get read, you need to start the process by posting comments that are reasonably grammatical, mostly correctly spelled, and most importantly -- coherent and well-reasoned. Ad hominem attacks and insults, whether or not you feel they are deserved, are ineffective rhetorical devices to use while writing to persuade.

6 Pulitzers! That is extraordinary. Congratulations to your colleagues on their very well-deserved awards, Joel. (We all have to work a bit harder now so we can get an award for the Achenblog next year.)

"Eerie photograph" of HRC? Only if you think she looks eerie. I don't.

I thought it was a brilliant mood photograph capturing her in a moment of tiredness. I could easily see the same photograph taken of any of the other candidates. In fact, Paris Achenbach took one of Obama in New Hampshire (He was smiling and the light was better, but he also looked tired).

I see way too many photographs of HRC catching her in a faked smile out there, making it look posed. I'd have liked to have seen more photos that didn't look like photo-ops.

Photographic journalism isn't about "pretty". It's about capturing information; or so some people have told me. And her photographs have not revealed much information at all.

Maybe it disturbs you so much because women are still seen as "pretty faces" and we don't want to give them the authenicity and depth that men are allowed. We deny women the right to have complexity and shadows to their soul.

Maybe you just really like HRC and think she hasn't come off well in this campaign. That's true enough. This is not the fault as much of the MSM as it has been of her lack of control over her campaign's strategies in engaging and using the media.
For instance, most candidate's campaigns wouldn't have put reporters in the men's restroom as their "press room."

I'm an Obama supporter, but I think all the people calling for her to fold are being disrespectful. She has a right to run as long as she wishes, as long as she doesn't openly attempt to sink the Dem's chances of winning the White House. Which, you must admit, she has come close to doing so on a couple of occasions-- and it backfired on her.

"How "Slaughterhouse Five" was born"
http://www.salon.com/books/review/2008/04/07/vonnegut/

Joel, I know that it's fun to be part of a winning team. And I am sure that Gene's winning means a lot to you personally as well as professionally.

Of course I've always assumed Gene was more like the crazy colorful Uncle who likes to play that "pull my finger" bit than the grandfatherly type. But whatever works.

And there is, of course, the obvious lesson in the success of all them geezer types.

Just keep on doin' like you're doin'.

Boko... I don't know much about turkeys (except that they're really good with cranberry sauce), but a couple months ago I happened to look out the kitchen window and found a very large hawk sitting on the corner of our back porch roof. The hawk saw me through the window, but didn't budge. We must have spent at least 10 minutes or so just looking into each others eyes.

The weird part is that my old college English prof had sent me a draft of a book he's been working on in which there's a scene where he describes a spiritual awakening involving a hawk. Basically, he finds some affinity with the hawk on a spiritual level -- kind of a totem thing, I guess. Anyway, I called him up after the hawk left and before I could get past "hello" he said, "funny you should call... I was just thinking about you."

Crazy guano, man. Crazy guano.

Hey Martooni... next time you see a disreputable black lab-type doing anything, know that I am with you in spirit, man, and that my spirit's bored and wants to go play with Little Bean. And a tennis ball. And a car ride or two, maybe?

I must go forth and make sure the force of good walking energy is with my own pet gnome. Then I can go draw runes in the fresh-fallen snow according to ancient ritual.

(The mystic incantations will come later at the next full moon.)

Gene W wins! It was a great story and I can't wait until we see Gene write the 'stupid phone calls placed to the Pulitzer line' piece.

Congrats to all. In Mudville, wailing and gnashing of teeth. The Charlotte Observer has struck out.

Congratulations to the Post. Well done.

Joel, you write "The Post's winning entries are full of shoe-leather journalism. . .." and I agree. But in other Post articles I see a lot of "[so-and -so] did not return several calls requesting comment" and "[so-and-so] did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment." How much reporting is real shoe leather and how much is phoning it in? Do reporters need to hit the streets and bang on doors more?

Congratulations to the Post. Well done.

Joel, you write "The Post's winning entries are full of shoe-leather journalism. . .." and I agree. But in other Post articles I see a lot of "[so-and -so] did not return several calls requesting comment" and "[so-and-so] did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment." How much reporting is real shoe leather and how much is phoning it in? Do reporters need to hit the streets and bang on doors more?

Congrats to Gene and everyone else. Next year, make sure they submit your daughter's article about Wilson!

Boko999:

It's an Omen. It means Gene will win a second Pulitzer and become Pope, improbable as the latter may appear.

And if the event occurs, I got firsts on Treasury Secretary.

There's a story up right now on yahoo about turkeys going postal. Can't figure out how to link it. But I think it's prophetic.

And made to order for a big swinging journalistic oosik, with a Pulitzer behind him.

I was wrong: I should have opened the bunker earlier. My bad. Tim, thank you for carrying my water for me for the last couple of hours. And you too, Wilbrod.

Congratulations to the Post - well done.

By the way, how many Pulitzers did Fox News win this year?

Maybe you could have linked to Gene's winning article????

Mudge, I hope this doesn't mean you have consumed all the champagne and doughnuts without us.

Congrats to the post, that is some very impressive stuff.

I am also impressed with both the Caps and Wiz making the playoffs in the same year.

Hey, who does everyone like in tonight's game. My mother likes Memphis because of Graceland....me too but maybe not for that reason.

And what I am most impressed by in the sports world is the Orioles are on top of the standing in the A.L. East.

oh and Hi boodle

Here you go, Jeannie:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

Hi all! Sitting here in a Charlotte hotel backboodling and enjoying the good news for the Post. College Parkian put it perfectly... Huzzah!

I had dinner tonight with Slyness and Mr T. The first thing Slyness told me when she got there, knowing I'd been off-boodle all day... "The Washington Post won six Pulitzers!" There is some joy in Mudville.

I think our wonderful, diverse group here is a direct result of the excellent writing, reporting and editing at the Post. How else would we have such a gathering of folks from around the world? (Where's Eurotrash lately?) Everyone here in the boodle started out on the Post front page. Joel made us feel welcome. His turn will come, I have no doubt.

Thanks for the Vonnegut link. Like any fan of a fallen star, I am a sucker for the early stuff even if it isn't as good as the stuff from the prime of their career. One of his last books, "Bagombo Snuff Box" was also early work, most never previously collected. Now we have moved onto the unpublished stuff. Maybe the next book will be term papers and exam essays. Not that it will matter to me.

I went back and reread Pearls before Breakfast, and listened to the audio clips. Even with the horrible conditions, you can tell the music and the musician are very, very special.

Oh, and Mr. T and I had a lovely dinner with TBG. I love the connections and friendships we have made in the place. That's what makes it so great.

Congratulations to Uncle Gene, Dana Priest, Anne Hull, and all the WaPo staff and other writers who were awarded Pulitzers today.

The intersection of good jouralism, good writing and social value is still an important place, even as the nature of American letters evolves from ink and paper to html code and browsers to video and comment applciations.

And I'm happy for that.

Hopefully, my kids will recognize the importance of well crafted, meaningful communications, too.

Oh, and I agree with you, Mudge: The Josh Bell story was quite good and worthy of the Prize, but Gene wuz robbed for not winning last year with The Great Zucchini piece.

bc

I think many of trolls banging on the bunker door are anonymous disgruntled NYTimes reporters running through the neighborhood knocking over trash cans.

Something I forgot to mention earlier:

I spoke to our friend Scottynuke from his Secure Honeymoon Location, and he said to give the Boodle a Mile High Grover Wave.

Now, back to this basketball game...

bc

This is one heck of a game, no?

From the front page, I'm really bothered by this: "In Paris, Olympic Torch Extinguished in Protests."

If protesters had done the same before the Berlin Olympics of 1936, it's doubtful that the Holocaust would have been prevented, but it certainly would have prevented the world from seeing Jesse Owens mock the Nazi lie. Denying China its moment on the world stage may seem satisfying to those who despise the present government and its awful policies, but it denies the world the opportunity to scrutinize China so intensely that no propaganda could control the message entirely. The First Amendment to the US Constitution is #1 on the Bill of Rights precisely because the freedom to speak and the freedom to believe is so fearsome to tyrants. We need to hear and see the truth from China, and we need to hear and see the lies, too. The only way to prove they're lies and not "misinterpretations" is by letting China place itself before the world. Protest, sure, but don't hinder the progress of the Olympics.

Again with the honeymoon, S'nuke?

San Diego is soooooo warm and bright! There are bajillion people at the Experimental Biology meeting. Crowds going wild at mention of "polymorphic perversity in protein polymers" and "lamellar body secretion"; lumpy nerds dancing to bad music; heady stuff!

Hey, even the Times of India headline on topic reads thus:
Washington Post wins six Pulitzers, NYT wins two

Nice!

I'm not sure I can watch the OT in this game, my heart just won't take it and I don't even have a favorite.

Congratulations to all in the WaPo newsroom for earning multiple Pulitzer awards. PlainTim, you've done a fine job of parrying with some of the folks that found their way here via the Trail. I'd swear that you're trained in the Jedi arts. I've spent the evening at the local Little League field, watching our son's team pull one out of the fire and post their first win. Our son goes with a desire to play and have fun, and an equal measure of anticipation for the game ending snacks: tonight blue koolaid and a Little Debbie Oatmeal Pie were served. The schedulers must do something about having games that don't end until 10 p.m.. Eight year olds need their sleep as, IMO, school trumps sports.

Ohhhh. Lisa Randall is on Charlie Rose.

Yes, nice work JediTim.
Except, I doubt these relatively small expressions of resistance against the unaccountable might of China will "hinder the progress of the Olympics". Indeed, thus far it seems they're doing a good job of sparking interest and prompting the world to "scrutinize China so intensely".

Well, I don't actually expect that this petty troublemaking will prevent the Olympics from occurring. However, it might cause individual countries to boycott, which would be a shame and a loss. We did it once, and I think it was the wrong move. We don't want it to become a habit for anyone, because that really could hinder the Olympics. The Olympics can only be as strong as the international commitment to keep them going.

way to go, wapo.

I disagree Tim. I've e-mailed my govt. asking it to keep our people out of the Olympics or at least to boycott the opening ceremonies. Right now the Chinese govt. is telling its people that the demontrations are being caused by a few Tibetan criminals and if all the world shows up this lie will be easier to maintain.
I suppose it depends on whether one thinks a sporting event is more important than the Chinese govts crimes against its own people and its bad acts re. Darfur and Burma.

Two superpowers threw consecutive snit fits ('80 and '84), yet the games survived. I wonder if these expressions helped defer direct confrontation? I'll take an Olympics boycott over war anytime (though they did end up fighting by proxy in Afghanistan and blowback from that mess continues...).

Anyway, individual countries have boycotted the games/been banned from the games often; e.g., China came back in '80, after years of boycotting the games over the Taiwan issue.

South Africa was banned from the Olympics for decades, and many think that this action contributed to the end of apartheid. Can you blame those who care for the rights of Tibetans for hoping that the Olympics could help them achieve similar success?

Speedbackboodled and saw the bit where y'all almost worked up to a rant on having-n-raising kids in modern times...but didn't quite get there. Too bad.

So, here is a ready-made rant from one of my favorites:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/07/education

Oh the joy of hotel rooms (I don't have cable at home):
Stephen Colbert ended his eulogy for Heston with that clip from Soylent Green and said, "Charlton Heston! Great man, fussy eater!"
Teeheehee...but no one in the audience laughed?!

Most hadn't watched the movie? I still haven't... but I did learn about that saying somehow a couple years ago.

Congratulations! Absolutely loved WAPO's reporting on this one, too:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/07/climatechange.carbonemissions

Oops. Well, I'm gonna ignore, too. Never did like the idea of Memphis as a seaport.

Here's a more optimistic one--and it provides a rationale for the Florida Gators!

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2004332017_gators07.html

Tim said:
"If protesters had done the same before the Berlin Olympics of 1936, it's doubtful that the Holocaust would have been prevented, but it certainly would have prevented the world from seeing Jesse Owens mock the Nazi lie."
That was a fine taunting indeed, but, so what.
The big difference here is that in 1936 Hitler hadn't started the genocide, the Tibetens are undergoing a cultural one right now, not to mention the Chinese supported genocide in Darfur and Burma. Would it have been OK to support a boycott if Hitler's Final Solution was underway in 1936?

"Denying China its moment on the world stage may seem satisfying to those who despise the present government and its awful policies, but it denies the world the opportunity to scrutinize China so intensely that no propaganda could control the message entirely."
As much as I like Bob Costas I don't think he and his friends will be in any position to do much intense scrutinizing of China or tell us anything we don't already know.
The purpose of the boycott is to make the government look bad in the eyes of their own people. I don't want to give a totalitarian government a huge, prestige building PR triumph.

Congrats WaPo! Way to go.

'Morning, Boodle. Cassandra, you out there? Got your computer fixed yet? I think we;ll have to leave Scotty alone for the next couple of days. Good column by Gene Robinson; otherwise not much to report.

I went over to the Weingarten Pool and he's all over his faux-modesty schtick by soliciting criticism of himself. He wins a big award and still sits in his monkey cage throwing poo yelling "Look at me!" He sure isn't a very graceful winner.

Goood morning, everybody!

Gonna spend my day in the waiting room of the maternity ward. When you hear huzzahs (LOVE that word), it will be me and the other grandparents. The twins come today!

I wonder if they have WiFi in the waiting room? I'll check the hospital website and see...

Boko I would not like to see our government or any government boycot the Olympics. While it may sound like a great gesture it is forgetting the lives it impacts, athletes train for years for those Olympics, for many it will be their only chance to compete, and for most whether directly or indirectly their Olympic experience will impact on what they do with the rest of their life through their careers and community involvement.

I did not agree with the decision to award the Olympics to China, but that having been done I would prefer governments choose an alternative means to protest China's actions.

I don't believe that boycotts have any lasting impact other than to hurt those directly involved with the Olympics. Didn't African nations boycott Montreal?

Good thoughts going to you and your family Slyness - so exciting!

About the Olympics, I am with DMD. Wish the location had not be awarded to China, however, the gesture to engage is very important. Statecraft is very complicated. Sigh. Always there is sadness in the world but this recent move against China's faux enemy is very troubling: Tibetan people deserve to live in their high mountain home and worship as they will.

BTW -- Bhutan will be part of the Smithsonian Folk Life festivities this summer. Looking forward to that because several Bhutanese people who lived near me while attending grad school at UMCP will be in town.

Babies in the wings! Again, the best words about babies come from Dickens.

I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.

Dickens, in The Old Curiosity Shoppe.

---
Downtown to a lecture on how plants are being used as ambient ozone level detectors; then back to UMCP to present on the history of the scientific journal. Will return to hear the names and stats on dooble boodle boys. Tis already a very good day.

Interesting that there was no Pulitzer awarded for Editorial. Not sure what to make of this.

Congratulations to the Wapo. Best wishes to Slyness, can't wait to hear the details. Very busy and sorta stressed here, trying to at least skim the boodle.

Morning all! What a game last night! I'm glad I didn't have a clear favorite to pull for, although I was leaning toward Kansas. I would have been happy to see either team win in such a contest.

DNA Girl... glad you're having fun at the nerdfest. I meant to tell you that I stopped by the local Indian store the other day and picked up the spices I didn't have in the house ("Ajawan seeds? Very exotic... what are you making?") and have been loving my daily morning cup(s) of tea very much. Thanks for the "recipe."

I am enjoying my brief preview of spring here in Charlotte. Azaleas and dogwoods, which won't be in bloom in the DC area for another three weeks or so, look so graceful and beautiful in this lovely Southern city.

Looking forward to the news on Boodle-dee and Boodle-dum.

Wow, that *was* a heck of a game last night.

Gotta love high-pressure three-pointers with two seconds left in regulation, and huge momentum shifts.

Heck, ya gotta love college basketball.
The ladies' NCAA Championship is tonight with Stanford going against Tennessee, and it might be as good a game as the men's championship.

bc

Morning boodle! Look for Mr. F and Frostdottir in the stands if you watch the women's final tonight. He'll be wearing an orange Honolulu Marathon shirt and she'll be holding a plush hound dog that sings Rocky Top when you squeeze a paw. Our inventory of Vol gear diminishes with every move-haven't lived in Tennessee since '92.

Sigh, must get back to work-wicked commute to the office upstairs here at Chez Frostbitten. Have had being snowed in to justify my slothfullness for two full days but roads are clear and people who know I work at home are back in their offices and e-mailing like the Internet was just invented.

An interesting net neutrality piece in the NYT by OK Go's lead singer-
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/05/opinion/05kulash.html

If atheletes want to travel to China and compete on their own and/or their sponsors dime I would have no objection but I don't want my tax dollars financing or my country's symbols used to glorify a murderous, totalitarian state.

I couldn't care two figs about the Dalai Lama. He may have been ever so sweet as a religious leader but he's been an abject failure as a political one. If the Tibetens hadn't been so stupified by their religion and had a third of their population sitting on their backsides spinning prayer wheels maybe they wouldn't have been such a walkover for the Chinese.
I support the Tibetans who are taking action.

Boko I think it would be most effective to protest "our" tax dollars used to set up industry in China - considerably more than the pittance put towards amateur sport.

Trying to catch up with all of the kits.
Doh--re your post of 3:59 pm yesterday. There are people, like myself, who love Dana Milbank and his Washington Sketch.

Wanted to buy his new book that came out around Christmas time, haven't done it yet, but it's on my list.

One last blast.
These last years have put the lie to the hollow joke of "Consrtuctive Engagement." As if rewarding a regime with trade preferences would change their behaviour. What geniuses came up with that one?
Oh yeah.

I am looking forward to seeing the Beijing Olympics. Something about "giving them enough rope" comes to mind.

Congrats, Washington Post!! You are the champions!!

Although it is seen as politicizing the non-political Olympics I'd go for something like this
http://www.upress.umn.edu/images/F2002/0816639442.big.gif
over a boycott.

Which countries are worthy of hosting the Olympics?

The whole modern Olympics has been an execise in national chest thumping.
IIRC so were the ancient games. In a city/state kinda way.

yello, are you off your meds, or perhaps taking the wrong kind or wrong dose.

The most recent Gene Pool item went up before the Pulitzers were announced. He only changed the Title and Content after the announcement.

If you search for the newsroom videos of the speeches made, Gene gives a very humble acceptance speech giving credit to everyone but himself.

You sound like a troll this AM.

frosti asks, "Which countries are worthy of hosting the Olympics?"

I've been a long-time advocate of having the Games in neutral locations.

Not Switzerland neutral: I propose having permanent locations for the Summer Games on the Moon and the Winter Games in Antarctica.

Granted, the 1/6 Earth gravity on Luna and Global Warming in Antarctica will make things interesting, but not impossible.

Let the corporations pay for everything from their sponsorship budgets (and I'm sure they'd be more willing to invest in permanent facilites), the wealthy can afford to travel to those locations, and the rest of us can watch on TV/Internet, as we would anyway.

bc

Here's what I'd like to see more of, not just the sport itself, but a bunch of kids in a gym doing something they're good at without parents fawning all over them, or yelling at them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0YgrUKfTcA&feature=related

There have quite a few movies made about aspects of the newspaper business- publishers, editors, reporters, sportswriters, gossip columnists, critics, photographers, even cartoonists. Off the top of my head: Citizen Kane (regarded by many as the greatest film of all), Deadline USA(Bogart's last), The Paper(Glenn Close and Michael Keaton fist fight), The Front Page(Lemmon and Matthau), Superman(Daily Planet), Call Northside 777(Jimmy Stewart uses column to free innocent man), Rear Window(JS is a photog on sick leave), and on and on. My two favorites are His Girl Friday(same story as The Front Page ) and Ace in the Hole, the first a breakneck paced screwball comedy with wonderful interplay between Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, the second a searing indictment of sensation seekers by Billy Wilder starring Kirk Douglas as a truly amoral s**t. The blockbuster about blogging is undoubtedly already in development.

Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster in.. um..er.
I can't remember. What a collander head.

Gene was, in fact, incredibly gracious in addition to being funny yesterday. He thanked by name everyone who touched the story, including 5 different copy editors [see kit above]. And he had a hilarious riff at the end about his fear that Josh Bell would be so humiliated by being ignored that it would plant a seed of doubt in his brain, and erode his musical skills, and that ultimately Bell would wind up back at L'Enfant Plaze metro station, with a bottle of gin in his pocket, busking for real.

I can't help but think Gene had some advance warning on his award and the timing of both his Gene Pool item and poll is suspicious in its nature and timing.

Roman emperors had people whispering in their ear "you are only mortal" as a way of keeping themselves humble after big triumphs. I think this is his way of doing it to himself. But it's done in a rather conspicuous "aren't I humble?" way.

Gene is a very talented writer but his schtick gets wearing. Ever since his long chat sabbatical his tone has been broader as well as more antagonistic and inflammatory. And frankly, some of his Below The Beltway columns are literally phoned in.

It still makes him an interesting writer, but the emperor or Czar or whatever he is calling himself tends to parade around naked occasionally. If saying so is trolling, so be it.

I'm in the dmd camp regarding the Olympics. Also wish it hadn't been awarded to China.

Does anyone remember the Thomas Pommel. He surely would have brought home the gold(s). It's the one thing Carter did that teed me off more than anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Thomas_(gymnast)

Kudos and huzzahs all around for Posties who have earned a Pulitzer. (I prefer to say earned as opposed to won).

But Let's not forget Len Downie (not saying anybody has, just posting a reminder). Twenty-five Pulitzers for The Post under his stewardship.

Huzzah one more time.

Caught by Joel Boodling out of order. I will defer to Joel on his assessment of Gene's reaction. It does sound like he was genuinely gracious. In person he undoubtedly is.

His public persona over the last days is still open for interpretation.

k-guy,
Speaking of movies about newspapers, don't forget one the worst Julia Roberts movies ever made, "I Love Trouble". I paid full price and a baby sitter to see that stinker.

Nick Nolte played a drunken, over-the-hill, self-plagiarizing columnist. Any rumors on who the character was based on? The list of candidates must be pretty long.

A note for bc. Couldn't locate a copy of 'Expedition to Earth', but did manage a copy of 'The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke'.

TCSoACC has all the same stories as EtE. Some under different names.

EtE: 11 stories in 167 pages.

TCSoACC: 104 stories in 966 pages.

Nine hundred and sixty-six:Yikes. I wonder how many times I can recheck this out of the library.

Sweet Smell of Success about the columnist.

Sorry yello, but the list of worst Julia Roberts movies is just too long for me to attempt.

yellojkt, when you win a Major Award, you're typically told in advance to prevent public reactions that might be adverse - screaming, jumping up and down, fainting, political speeches, inappropriate hugging/body contact or celebratory removal of clothing, etc.

Part of the reason media awards shows are so popular is because they're a form of what we now refer to as 'Reality TV.' Celebrity spectacle.

I would be surprised if Gene *didn't* know beforehand. The Pulitzer folks are a class act, and they'd want to give the winners the best opportunity to celebrate the awards appropriately.

bc

Yeah, such as wearing a suit and tie and heading into the office.

In case I am coming off too curmudgeonly today, I feel that the Joshua Bell piece wasn't even Gene's strongest piece in recent years. Both the Great Zucchini and Stoned Eskimos stories were better articles.

And the Walter Reed story was a paradigm changing revelation. It changed the scope, tone, and perspective for all the reporting since. It will be looked on as a watershed moment in the public perception of the war.

I just reread the Bell piece. I think I understand why this was Pulitzer Prize winning stuff.

Gene's piece is pure reporting. The only twist is that the subject of the reporting is something contrived.

Gene did what good reporters always do. They observe. They get commentary. They do a modest amount of speculation. Then they put it all into context so that the reader can understand that whole, you know, "big picture" thing.

I guess if someone wants to understand just what those reporter people really do, Gene's piece wouldn't be a bad place to start.

Sorry yello, but the list of worst Julia Roberts movies is just too long for me to attempt.

Posted by: kurosawaguy | April 8, 2008 11:05 AM

********

K-Guy, allow me:

the list of worst Julia Roberts movies = the list of Julia Roberts movies

Is it possible that I have missed it, or am I really the first to say we can now "Toast Posties!" Cheers, y'all.

Yello - I really enjoyed Gene's Zucchini and Alaska stories as well. Let's face it, all were Pulitzer quality. (As was, in my opinion, this absolutely brilliant article about Global Warming Deniers I once read in the Magazine.)

The superiority of the Bell piece, I believe, is that it doesn't get its emotional impact from the subject. It's easy to be moved by the story of the Great Zucchini, and certainly by the Alaska community. These topics are intrinsically noble. You would have to screw up pretty badly not to come up with something good.

The brilliance of the Bell piece, outside of the pure reporting I mentioned earlier, is that Gene took an apparently ordinary event - a street musician - and made it profound.

I'm not sure if this was much mentioned at the time, but I think the fact that this street musician was the famous Joshua Bell was almost secondary to the piece. Gene could have observed any decent street musician and still come up with something powerful.

I'm going to be late for a very important meeting now, but I had to read all the Pulitzer Prize stuff, and watch the videos. It was wonderful and worth it.

Congratulations from the bottom of my heart, to all the winners but a special big congrats to Gene.

Moving onto China, I am also in favor of the "selling them the rope they need" strategy. Lets report on the country objectively and fairly. If that reflects poorly on the country, let the chips fall where they lie.

China has been brutally occupying Tibet for half a century now. Silly games with a torch isn't going to change that. Exposing its citizens to modern ideals and mores will. It's just going to take longer. China's capitalist economy/totalitarian government is precariously unstable, and anything we can do to tip it is a good thing.

What we need to do is overtly and covertly support the voices of dissent that will help our long term interests as a freedom loving open society. Those interests unfortunately do not always correlate with the interests of the Walmart board of directors.

Well said, yellojkt. Also take into consideration the scholars and students in the US campus since the open door policy by Deng in the late 80's. Some are admitted in undergraduate programs, not just the graduate school the elite applied. Return to China might not be the first choice, but the ones returned will surely have an impact on the daily lives of Chinese.

Wow, omni, that's a lot of good reading.

I have pretty darn near all of Clarke's books up to the point where he started collaborating with Gentry Lee and Stephen Baxter (and I do have a few of those), so I 'spect I have most of what you have there in TCSoACC.

Remember how we geeks used to tout how Clarke's "Superiority" was required reading for some MIT engineering class or another?

bc

And Gene confesses that his mock-humble compliment fishing was deliberate.

...or a watery tart lobbing scimitars...

BZ, WaPo, BZ

Do I sense a bit of green-eyed, wistfull envy rising up in the boss? If these Pulitzer thingies are an annual event, we oughtta have the festivities all pre-arranged for when the big guy gets his. Does the prize come covered in any, um, gravy? If not, does WaPo show *it's* appreciation to those folks?

Back to the !@#$%^&*( black helicopters.

I thought the reporting aspect of the Joshua Bell article was well-done, but Gene had a lot of help with it (the reporting, I mean)--in contrast to the Alaska article and the Great Zucchini article, for which he did most (all?) of the research himself. Also, in both those cases he came upon the situation and reported it (although, typically, Gene doesn't make any big effort to stay separated from his subject; he gets involved in it and that personalizes the article). The Joshua Bell article has a little bit of a "stunt" aspect. It was a set-up. It was like Candid Camera, or a sociology experiment. So, it's not so much pure reporting as it is a combination of performance art and commentary. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I also really liked the story Gene did about why people don't vote.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3439-2004Oct27.html

I think the reception that "Pearls Before Breakfast" got on the internet was a big part of the reason it got the award. It wasn't just a story; it ended up being a phenomenon.

yellojkt, RD, etc. I agree with you that the government of Communist China is a brutal totalitarian regime that won't be missed by anyone when it's gone.

I do believe that we need to proceed with caution where they are concerned. Destabilizing CC without the situation turning into a humanitarian crisis of a scale unseen in history - we are talking about a country of over a Billion people (and marginal means to feed them all) with a large military, several types of WMDs, and a signifcant disregard for human rights here, after all.

And our recent track record for managing large-scale regime change... well, it isn't stellar, that's for sure.

The thought of being anywhere near the death-throes of a heavily-armed billion-person totalitarian country as it goes down like an angry, scared wooly mammoth is not a comforting thought. Particularly if you happen to live in places like Japan or India, or even the west coast of the US.

bc

Chinese holdings in US Treasury bonds are rapidly approaching $500 billion, second only to Japan. As Sgt. Esterhaus used to say on Hill Street Blues, "Hey, let's be careful out there!"

time for a quiz http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/departments/homework/?page=Quiz199&Quizid=199

got the last one wrong, darnit...

Boycotts punishes the athletes and do not achieve much in my humble opinion. How did the African Nations boycott of the Montreal Olympics affected the racist regime of South-Africa? (The AN protested the presence of New Zealand, whose All Blacks played the RSA's Springbokke earlier in the year)
How much the US boycott of the Moscow game affected the occupation of Afghanistan by the USSR?
And the absence of Warsaw Pact nations in LA turned the O Games in an all-american chest thumping extravaganza, no benefits for the commies there.

7/7 but complete shot in the dark guesses on 1 and 7.

We all agree that the CC regime is nasty, brutish and short. I don't see why we should hand them the prestige that hosting the Games entails.
Oh well, I'm still going to buy my lawn darts from Taiwan and cheer on the brave Tibetan protesters.

#7 was the only guess for me. I eliminated two, so I had 50-50 chance.

Doubledarnit.

6/7 on the pandas. I won't own up to the one I missed. Pandas are adorable because they're so dang anthropomorphic. I've seen them at four zoos on two continents:

http://livebythefoma.blogspot.com/2008/02/pandas-on-parade.html

Here are my 37 best photos of pandas:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yellojkt/tags/panda/

[bc smacking head]

How could I forget Taiwan?

Really, if things go Very Badly Very Quickly in China, I'd be nervous about being anywhere within a few thousand miles...

bc

So is China's stranglehold on our economy and their possession of nuclear weapons a reason to treat them with kid gloves or to tighten the screws? I'm genuinely curious.

Since China hasn't has a deep water navy since the Ming Dynasty, I'd be more worried about that if I were Taiwan.

Got 5/7 on the panda quiz. Missed the feeding time and appearace difference. I am ashamed to admit that I've never seen the pandas at the zoo in all the many years they've been here. It probably 30 years since I was there, sorry to say.

6/7.
Mostly because I visited Bai Yun, Su Lin, Zhen Zhen (ooh cute baby!) yesterday. China definitely makes good pandas.
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/zoo/ex_panda_station.html

Hmm...I see little support here for the protesters or appreciation that their activities been reasonably non-violent (at least thus far).
This is what happened in SF yesterday:
http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=11740
(the youtube video has been set to the theme from Shaft!)

OK, back to the other nerdfest...though it's really hard to step back into the convention center; San Diego is too sunny for work.

I haven't seen them live at the zoo either, and the zoo is practically in my 'backyard'. I probably won't be visiting anytime either. Unless they aquire jaguars. My favorite big cat. Tabby is my favorite littly cat.

Giant Panda page:
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/

Panda cam:
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/default.cfm?cam=LP2

I'm a panda dunce, 4/7. Mostly guesses as well.
I've never seen giant panda in the flesh but I have seen red pandas. They are arrestingly beautiful animals. I spent 15 minutes in front of their cages on both occasions I had to see red pandas.

There used to be a brewery called "Formosa Springs" that made a pretty good beer. I'm glad the didn't change their name to "Taiwan Springs" as I think it lacks the same pizzazz. "Republic of China Springs" would have been even worse IMO.

Likewise "Union of Myanmar Shave." Who'd want to splash something called that on their face?

in response to yellojkt's query

The ChiComs and their vices, they surely have no lack
there's quite a few bodies beneath that U.S. T-Bond stack
but if you're making them lose face
better not keep a close embrace
The name of the game is to avoid another Reichenbach

yellojkt, I agree, the Chinese navy is not much of a threat.

However, knockoff MiGs and missiles with warheads don't need water. Or a Navy.
And if the Chinese Gov't decides they're going down anyway - for whatever reasons - they may decide to do something drastic (think Tiannamen Square).

I would also add that my advocation of caution stems from the ideas that:
a: they don't care about human rights
and
b: for countries and peoples that do - such as most of the Western world, their own population could be considered hostages, of a sort.

Would China use nukes on its own soil to make a point and set an example for other Chinese provinces?

I don't know.

bc

7/7 on the pandas. I took my mom and brother to see Tai Shan and the fam Christmas '06. Actually, pop was the cutest one of the bunch--rolled up onto his back to munch his bamboo.

*holding mirror under the boodle's nose*

I kilt it.

7/7 and I'm not into pandas. Wilbrodog likes seeing them far more than I do-- I think he mistakes them for big Old English sheepdogs at a distance. Or he has backyard envy. Probably the latter.

Omni, the national zoo does have leopards (black and regular spotted), cheetahs, and a wonderful rainforest exhibit-- the native habit of the jaguar, and they also have geoffroy's cats in the small mammal house-- they look like big leopard-marked housecats, and are highly agile; they can walk upside down on tree branches or hang by their back feet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey%27s_cat

The National zoo is also studying reproduction in jaguars throughout the Americas.
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/ConservationAndScience/ReproductiveScience/ConsEndangeredCats/default.cfm

Shriek is right about those Red Pandas: http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/AsiaTrail/RedPanda/factsheet.cfm

The PLAN (People's Liberation Army Navy) use to be the unloved step child of the PLA. Not anymore. They bought some semi-modern Russian destroyers and subs but mostly got cracking on domestically built destroyers, frigates and subs. They still have a navy that is mostly made-up of old, small units but it's changing rapidly, thanks to the Wally World dollars, Tesco pounds and Auchan euros that are being rained on the country. The PLA has publicly stated that the 21rst century would be the "century of the water". They have maybe 30 modern tin cans and two dozen capable subs, that's not bad on the global picture. They also have a gazillion small coastal defense vessels, lots of them with anti-ship missile capability. Whether this huge fleet of small buzzers is there to keep their people in or the enemy out is open to question.
The biggest mystery though is what the heckk are they doing with their infamous stationary aircraft carrier. Interesting story of that carrier hull here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_aircraft_carrier_Varyag

Note toward the end of the article that it is rumored the hull may have been named for a Ming dynasty general who conquered Taiwan...

My apologies if someone has already linked to a review of this book on behavioral economics.

From Time:

"If you want people to use less energy, you could make it very expensive--or you could just let them know how much they use in comparison with their neighbors. When that bit of information was added to electric bills in San Marcos, Calif., heavy users quickly lowered their consumption, even though no one had asked them to. To borrow a term from behavioral economist Richard Thaler and legal scholar Cass Sunstein, the good people of San Marcos had been nudged.

In NUDGE: IMPROVING DECISIONS ABOUT HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS (Yale University Press; 293 pages), the two University of Chicago professors sketch a new approach to public policy that takes into account the odd realities of human behavior, like the deep and unthinking tendency to conform, even in areas--like energy consumption--where conformity is irrelevant."

Read all of "Lured Toward the Right Choice" here:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1727729,00.html

Here is a piece that Achenbach and Weingarten did together about 20 years ago, a cute thing called "Mister Know-it-All" -- The combination of those two and the title reminds me of a phrase I like to quote, "Those of you who think you know everything are annoying those of us who do."

http://tropicfan.com/Mister%20Know-it-All%20by%20Gene%20Weingarten%20editorial%20with%20J%20Achenbach.htm

frosti, the title of that article reminded me of one of my former professors. Sure enough, he was one of the authors! Thanks for a good read.

Amidst all the hooraw, it should be remembered that the Olympics STINK! I'd rather watch cup stacking.

A bit of joy in Mudville after all: I got into a little argument about performance art last year with my sister the journalist. She mentioned the Weingarten piece, saying was Bell's performance "performance art?" Being purposefully difficult, I retorted, no, the "art" was Weingarten's PIECE about Bell. Ha!

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/highway1/la-hy-neil2apr02,0,5128279.story?track=mostviewed-storylevel

for bc

I am sensing a certain stinging criticism of myself. Let me note that I do care about the plight of Tibet and Tibetans (in exile and still in-country) and I resent the implication that I am indifferent to their situation. My disagreement is with strategy and tactics. Stifling the free expression of an ideal, like the Olympic ideal of fair competition (whether or not that ideal ever has been fulfilled in reality), is not a persuasive way to win respect for a commitment to free expression of ideas, and other freedoms.

I have no qualms about nonviolent protest, and I support the freedom of those who pursue that path. When the authorities -- the guys with the guns and the power of the state behind them -- feel compelled to extinguish the torch and sneak away in order to avoid confrontation, one gets the sense that the protest is no longer nonviolent, or is shaping up that way.

I don't give a flying kcuf about Bob Costas or his reporting skills at the Olympics. There will be broadcast TV cameras. There will be millions of independent video cameras, with vast amounts of footage escaping from China and getting onto YouTube and other venues. There will be millions of visitors from around the world, suddenly dumped upon China. No matter how hard the government works to maintain their Potemkin Olympic Village, lots of those people will get away from their minders and out into the real China, some of the real Chinese people will manage to get in. Simply by demonstrating in the flesh something that the Chinese are not permitted in their own country -- an exuberant sense of freedom, the sense that the police have no right to stop you from speaking your mind -- the foreign invasion will do far more to incite change than any boycott could do. Yeah, sure, if a boycott could bring freedom to Tibet, I'd support it. But I doubt it would do so; instead, the rage-filled protests show the West in its worst light and provide rich fodder for the Chinese government to propagandize its own people against us.

I just noticed that this is the first time in my admittedly poor memory that the boss has not linked to anything else in the kit.

Don, I guess that would make him delinkquent.

I can't believe you guys let that softball set-up sit out there for 39 minutes, unmolested. Sheesh. I had an excuse: I was working on something.

I touch on this in one of my side blogs occasionally that China is undergoing a top to bottom scrubbing, cleaning, and painting. Miles of sidewalks are being rebuilt. Every major temple and historic imperial building is being refurbished.

http://chinasights.blogspot.com/

Within eyesight of the Birds Nest Stadium (even on a pretty smoggy day, as they nearly all are) is a tourist attraction devoted to the Cultural Minorities of the country. It includes a large section on Tibet with a facsimile Buddhist temple. They also have several unsubtle displays about how well Muslim groups in the western part of the country are treated.

Most of this is window dressing, but the fact that they are concerned enough to bother says something.

Here is a different blogger who did not have a good time at the Ethnic Minorities Park.

http://beijingwideopen.org/2007/08/04/day-4-fake-tibet-in-racist-park/

There are several helicopters (not black) hovering above Goddard Space Flight Center right now, and have been for some time. Anybody have any idea what's up? They seem to above the Center, not above the BW Parkway, so I don't think that it's traffic coverage.

Maybe it's the Tibetans, Tim. Or the Chinese. Or pandas.

Chemical spill S'Tim. Go home.

S'Tim, here's pics. But I guess you could just look out the window.
http://www.nbc4.com/slideshow/news/15828444/detail.html

"We are winning the war on terror, he says, and the place goes wild. The economy is strengthening, he proclaims, with dubious authority but to raucous applause. One Republican stalwart stands to say he's mad at the president. Deadpan, Bush asks him why. Because America didn't get to enjoy his great policies over the last 30 years, the man says, and everyone cracks up in bonhomie."

That's Weingarten, '04. The next paragraph is about the finishing of the concrete floor on a 4-car garage floor. The guy should be a writer or somethin'.

"We are winning the war on terror, he says, and the place goes wild. The economy is strengthening, he proclaims, with dubious authority but to raucous applause. One Republican stalwart stands to say he's mad at the president. Deadpan, Bush asks him why. Because America didn't get to enjoy his great policies over the last 30 years, the man says, and everyone cracks up in bonhomie."

That's Weingarten, '04. The next paragraph is about the finishing of the concrete floor on a 4-car garage. The guy should be a writer or somethin'. If he's not modest enough it's because he doesn't need to be; if you don't like it, go listen to some sportscaster interview a mock-modest athlete on TV.

Thanks, LiT. The choppers were veering off for BWI just as I left work. That particular building is about a half-mile from my building, up a hill, behind some trees, and behind the tallest building on center. The first helicopter that I saw was hovering right over the parking lot at my building. I thought maybe there was something wrong right near me.

That is the main engineering building. They use some pretty powerful chemicals over there -- funky adhesives for carbon-fiber work, powerful acids for materials-cleaning and preparation, that sort of thing. It's not something to take lightly.

I was goofin with ya. I know it's a very big place and I figured if you were in 5, you'd know what the problem was. My first thought was some scientist had wings for lunch and a vial of something or other just, ooops, slipped out of his hand. These things happen. And you guys play with some crazy stuff.
Glad you weren't affected, and that it wasn't you who had wings for lunch.

Tim. I'm sorry if you took my disagreement
with your posts as a personal attack.

If your problem with my reponse was my sentence. "I suppose it depends on whether one thinks a sporting event is more important than the Chinese govts crimes against its own people and its bad acts re. Darfur and Burma." I still think it's a valid question (I forgot to add Tibet).
Anyway, I certainly don't think you're unmoved by the Communist Party's victims.

I don't see how flooding China with visitors ,even if they all point their fingers and cry "Shame" and bring back evidence of internal oppression, will affect China's behaviour, we already know China's a bad actor. I think a giant flop of a Genocide Olympics will send a more powerful message.
BTW I supported the boycott of the Moscow Olympics and still think it was a good idea. It was a symbolic act of disapproval just like the Tibetans snuffing the torch out is.

Hi Boko. It was a few comments, from various places. Don't worry. I'm over my minor umbrage. I agree with your goal, I still differ with you on the strategy.

:-)

Just noticed this photo essay on the Olympic athletes of Afganistan.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4242&page=5

Boko I have known to m