Author: jbenton

strom’s black daughter

Now that ol’ Strom has finally kicked off, it’s a good time to mention the little-known fact that he has a black daughter. (Well, “fact” may be a bit strong, since there’s a nest of half-denials around it, but I sure as hell believe it.) More here, including all the pertinent evidence.
Not that I would wish harm on anyone, but I’m not in the habit of shedding tears for unreconstructed racists like Strom and Lester Maddox. Particularly those hypocritical enough to build a career attacking the “mongrelization of the nation” while spreading his bigot seed wherever he damn well pleases.
One last link disproving the oft-repeated myth that Strom suddenly became a racial moderate in his old age.

chanda wins again

Chanda wins again, 6-4, 6-4 over a pained Amy Frazier. Next is, as predicted, Silvia Farina Elia. I’m just not seeing any difficulty for C.R. until the quarters.
Here’s a good Chanda story saying that “[n]ever in her 12-year pro career has Rubin been in a better position to reach the final of a Grand Slam.” It’s positive enough that I’ll forgive the writer’s silly Louisianaisms (“the whisper-quiet young woman from Carencro, La., a Lafayette suburb where there are more bayous than streets” — puh-leeze).
Did I not mention that Chanda won at Eastbourne last week, beating Capriati before finishing off Conchita Martinez? Or that it’s her second straight year winning Eastbourne?

chanda at wimbledon, wwdc

ChandaWatch returns to crabwalk.com! Chanda won her first-round Wimbledon match easily, crushing the once formidable Iva Majoli, 6-3, 6-0. Her path forward doesn’t look too rough: likely Amy Frazier in the second, Silvia Farina Elia in the third, a Maleeva in the fourth. Clijsters looms in the quarters, but Chanda has always done well on grass. I will boldly predict that this is the time for a Chanda breakthrough to the semis, which would be her first since the Australian in 1996.
Meanwhile, I’m back to AppleWatch, my obsessive trait of checking as many Mac news sites as possible during any major Steve Jobs address, this time the WWDC. (Nine Mac-related browser windows open at the moment.) If I weren’t about to live in a hotel room for four months and thus be stuck in a laptop lifestyle, the temptation to buy one of the new G5 towers he’s certain to announce in a few minutes would be overpowering.

greg packer analysis

A take on the Greg Packer situation. (Packer’s the guy who has committed his life to being quoted as the “man on the street” in newspaper stories.)
“I think the reason Packer is quoted so often is that journalists hate man-on-the-street interviews. It’s demeaning to have to scan a crowd of total strangers, seaching for someone who looks like he or she might have something quotable to say, and won’t tell you to get lost. What a relief to spot a Packer at the head of the line, ready and eager to give you a sound bite.”
So very true — MOTS stories are painful, for me at least. (That’s probably why my education stories always have too many men in suits and “experts” and too few teachers, parents, and students.)
Unfortunately, the author falls into one of the most annoying columnist tics — making a strong, coherent argument, realizing it might be taken as too extreme by your editors, and then completely reversing course with a few “I didn’t really mean it” paragraphs at the end.