I think the main point to be learned in this story is not that Carl Everett is a jerk, it's that John Gonzalez is a crappy reporter.

"I'm here to do a big story on the team--kind of an overview" Mm, focused. Good.

"Are you ready for the center field duties?" What answer was he expecting here, exactly? "No, I'm really unprepared. Oops, better get on that, hadn't I?"

Half the time, the guydoes get legit answers to his somewhat lame questions, and just has no idea what to do with them.

M: Some people have talked about your weight. Is it an issue? Does that bother you?

CE: That's just y'all. That's the media. That's you guys. You don't know me.

M: Well, you don't know me, and you were lumping me with the other media and giving me a hard time about my paper.

CE: I don't like the media. I don't like them. I don't like the media


Gosh, wonder why this guy is at a paper Carl Everett has never heard of.

Roger Ebert has a good essay on why the Ninth Circuit was right in the Pledge of Allegiance case.

A snippet:

This is really an argument between two kinds of prayer--vertical and horizontal. I don't have the slightest problem with vertical prayer. It is horizontal prayer that frightens me. Vertical prayer is private, directed upward toward heaven. It need not be spoken aloud, because God is a spirit and has no ears. Horizontal prayer must always be audible, because its purpose is not to be heard by God, but to be heard by fellow men standing within earshot.

OK, I was actually excited about the news that Bill Clinton and Bob Dole will debate each week on '60 Minutes' until I read the story more carefully. Teh debats will last a total of two minutes. Not two minutes each, two minutes total. The New York Times quoted '60 Minutes' executive producer Don Hewitt as saying that the old Point/Counterpoint segments were a minute longer but "attention spans had shortened since then."

I mean, really, what is the point of a 45 second debate? "Tax cuts are good" "No, they're bad" "No, theyre good!" "No, they're bad!" Woohoo.

And the DJs on the radio this morning were actually complaining about this. One said that "gee, no one wants to watch the debates when there's an election, why would we care when there's nothing going on." Right, cause important issues only arise every four years.

Worried about a war? Don't worry, US Air will let you change your flight plans within 90 days without a fee. Whew! That had me staying up nights, I'll tell ya.