Month: July 2004

Here’s my (non-Zambia) story in today’s paper. Probably not worth your time.
Also of note in today’s paper: this profile of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the late spiritual leader of Hasidic Judaism. It’s of note for at least two reasons: (1) the great headline, “Rebbe With A Cause,” and (2) it’s written by Michael Kress, my first editor-in-chief at my college newspaper.
Finally, I’ve finished updating zambiastories.com, including the addition of about 50 photos relating to tomorrow’s story in the DMN. (The captions will make more sense if you’ve read the story first.)

Also: I’ll be on TXCN tonight and tomorrow, talking about (you’ll never guess!) standardized testing.

WaPo White House correspondent Dana Milbank, one of this site’s favorite journos, hosts an unusually free-spirited Q&A on the Post’s site.
Question from Boston, Mass.: Anything new on the Palme investigation?
Dana Milbank: The Olaf Palme assassination remains, tragically, unsolved, a source of great agitation to all who love Sweden.
The Plame investigation, by contrast, chugs along in the secrecy of the grand jury and Justice department.

Fascinating Landsburgh piece about the problems with research into the economic impacts of minimum-wage laws. (Grafs 5-9 being the important ones.) I get the impression this is the sort of thing I would know if I’d ever taken a statistics course. It would come in handy, considering the mountains of crappy biased research I sift through every day.

FYI, a story about my time in Zambia will be in Sunday’s paper, in the Sunday Reader section. While it may depress the hell out of you — being an extended narrative about the death and burial of a 23-year-old AIDS victim and all — it should be more interesting reading than my education policy pieces.
Also, head over to zambiastories.com sometime this weekend to see a whole host of new Zambia photos. (Hopefully.)

In the category of Best Music Video By A German Quasi-Techno Band Featuring A Jellyfish Confused By A Desert Mirage, the nominees are:
– “Jelly Belly,” by Helmut Kohl and the Kohl Pencils
– “Happy As A Little Jellyfish,” by Dieter::Sprockets
– “Jellyfish Uber Alles,” by The Willy Brandt Explosion
– “One With The Freaks,” by the Notwist
– “99 Luftballons,” by Nena (Goldfrapp remix)
And the Oscar goes to…”One With The Freaks” by the Notwist.

I know we’re all essentially powerless against spam. We can try to adjust our workflow around it; we can try to beat it with technology. But in the end, spam’s going to win.
But this afternoon, some cretin decided to leave comment spam on my recent post about my grandmother dying. Comment spam for Cialis, the erection drug du jour, of all things.
It pissed me off. I reported his sorry ass, and I just got notice that his Internet account has been terminated as a result.
Sure, he’ll probably just set up shop somewhere else, the limp-dicked jerk. But still, small victories can feel awful nice.

You know, it wasn’t until after I posted that circumcision link that I realized that it was the 1,500th post in crabwalk.com history. I’d hoped such a milestone post would be momentous — earth-shaking, even. I’ll settle for foreskin humor.
Tonight’s task: Turning a 3,483-word story into a 1,200-word story. Wish me luck.

For the record, I absolutely, 1,000-percent agree with the folks at Gizmodo that this product will never be allowed with a 10-foot pole’s radius of me.

Dude, I totally scooped the Washington Post. Like, totally.