SOML

President Obama is about to deliver his first speech to Congress, an appearance they’re not calling a State of the Union address -- or SOTU, as headline writers sometimes abbreviate it -- but that will feel like one. Last month, here in Washington state, Gov. Christine Gregoire gave the first State of the State (SOTS) of her second term, and a week ago today Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels offered his own State of the City (SOTC) address.

It’s that time of year. So, in the spirit of the season I’m pausing a minute for a personal assessment: the SOML, or State of My Life. Ahem. Lapel pin adjusted. Ready the teleprompters!

Although the SOTUs themselves can drone on, presidential speechwriters often include one line that cuts to the chase. Something like: Tonight, the state of the union is ... sound, challenged, hopeful, whatever the case may be.

Tonight, the state of my life is ... a mix of chaos and stasis. Staos?

In some senses very little has changed, or changes. Approaching two and a half years now since I left work to deal with my health, I remain unemployed, on medical disability, seeing doctors, popping pills, checking months off my chemo calendar. At the same time life feels like it’s changing crazily. The Seattle P-I, where I used to work and Michelle still does, is likely to close in a few weeks. But we have no official word about whether an online version of the paper will survive as rumored or, if so, whether Michelle will grab one of the few musical-chair jobs left to be had.

It’s impossible to say with any certainty what we’ll be doing three months from now or even where we’ll be living. We’re both looking for work here in Seattle, where I have family and prefer to stay, but we agree that this is no time to insist on a specific job in a specific city. As cool as the Excellent Element is, neither of us wants to live in it. So we’re looking elsewhere as well. Turbulence creates downdrafts, and I wouldn’t be surprised if M&M winds up relocating, maybe back to Los Angeles, as early as this summer.

All that’s enough to give a guy a case of the chaotics.

Partly to brace for the financial hit, and in recognition that the various federal bailouts will bail out every sector except that of dopes like us who bought a house we could afford on a loan we were qualified to receive, Michelle and I have reassessed our household budget and made significant cuts in our lifestyle. Again stupidly responsible, no doubt. To be clear, I don’t mean to whine, as we’ve merely ratcheted down to moderately conservative from comfortably affluent. I mean, we are the rock’n’rollers who spent two Pie in the Sky months on the road last year, just a couple of months after spending two weeks in Paris and Rome. We’ve had it pretty good. Ew, did you drop your caviar in my champagne? But we have made adjustments. We’re not taking any trips this year that weren’t already planned, like the April pilgrimage to New Orleans for Freda’s 70th birthday. We’re limiting ourselves to one movie outing a month. We cut back to basic cable. We’ve stopped dining out. We’re making each gin bottle last twice as long (ouch). And I’ve stopped playing poker, on the theory that you should never bet what you can’t afford to lose. That one really hurts.

In support of the new budget plan we’ve combined finances more fully than ever before. That’s a net financial gain for me but a change that makes me cringe. I’ve been financially independent now for more than 30 years and hate to surrender the feeling. Ving Rhames tells Bruce Willis in “Pulp Fiction,” “That’s pride fuckin’ with ya,” and I know that’s true. Still.

I could go on. There are indignities on the job-search front, worries on the family front, frustrations on the medical front.

A friend asked the other day about my health, and I described how at this point the effects of brain cancer feel less physical and more psychological and emotional. I struggle sometimes to think of myself as the same capable, confident person who 17 months ago spazzed out of one familiar life and into this new weird one.

Even so, as I’m sure the president is saying right about now (we’re Tivo’ing the non-SOTU), out of hardship comes opportunity. Hope and recovery are ahead. Trite as these pat lines are, I believe there is truth in them, for the individual as well as the nation.

Personally, I have much to give me strength and hope. Despite some growing pains of adolescence Gina and Franny are awesome, inspiring kids and actually fun to be around. Lovergirl Michelle and I remain totally solid, in spite of the understandable stress we both face.

I don’t know where we’ll be this time next year -- or next month for that matter. But we’ll be here. M&M abides, and the SOML is, staotic though it may be, still pretty good.

OK. Off to watch the speech. Good night, and God bless America! Please comment on Obama’s address here.

Photo credit: Top photo via whitehouse.gov on Creative Commons license.

Belated happy inauguration day

In honor of Obama's inauguration the other day I went to Obamicon.me and made these images in the style of candidate Barack's famous "Hope" poster.

Apparently a lot of people have had the same idea. I keep seeing Facebook friends who have changed their personal photos to Obamicons, and an email from the Obamicon site tells me it's catching on:

"We knew we had a fun idea when it hit us, but we had no idea we'd get this kind of response. In less than two weeks, we've had millions of page views and nearly 200,000 Obamicons have been created--and activity grows by the hour."

I enjoyed watching part of the ceremonies and parade at Mich's house, over a cup of coffee and a turkey sandwich, and Michelle and I watched the Tivo'd Obama speech at home later Tuesday night. Very good, I thought: just the right stern, serious tone to lay out the problems and yet with a believable sense of can-do optimism. (Aretha, sadly, was not as awesome as her hat.)

A bunch of friends went to Washington for the inauguration. My friend Jason, who lives there, spent the day on the Mall and posted some great photos over at his site, The Cooler. Check them out.

Did you watch the ceremonies? Your thoughts? Also, if you have your own Obama-style photo, please send it along; we'll post an M&M-icon gallery.

First ladies (and other first residents)

With a new First Family headed for the White House it's important to put the moment in context.

Take Michelle Obama's election-night dress. A forum on its stylishness or suckishness was the most read item at the Seattle P-I for a day-plus. But how did all those other first ladies look? Fortunately here comes Us Magazine with a "First Ladies Through the Years" photo gallery, including President William Henry Harrison's wife Anna, above.

And what kind of puppy will those Obama girls get? NPR noted today that dogs have been regular White House residents, and it's got its own photo spread to prove it: "Presidential Dogs through History." Here are the Kennedys and their brood, two- and four-legged.


So now a dog, two kids and a stylish (or not) first lady, how will the Obamas get around? The LA Times comes through with photos of all the First Rides -- "Presidential cars then and now." Here's Warren Harding, the first president who knew how to drive before he entered office, and his Packard Twin Six.

Newspapers Win!

A funny thing happened on the way to newspapers' funeral: A bunch of news broke out, in the form of yesterday's historic election, and people decided they wanted a paper. Not just the paper's "content" -- usually available free on their websites -- but the actual, old-school newspaper.

My friend and former colleague James Grimaldi posted on his Facebook page this morning that he noticed a long line of people outside his Washington Post office waiting to buy a paper. Then he updated his post, with vintage Grimaldi salesmanship: "(I) just spoke w/ some of the hundreds waiting to buy a copy of today's paper and told them we would have happily delivered one to their home this a.m."

The Post must have gotten the word. It soon announced it would print a special edition of today's paper -- an "Extra!" like in the old days. And a bunch of other papers followed suit: The Chicago Tribune, New York Times and LA Times were among those printing more copies, according to this Top of the Ticket report.

With a nod to this cool post (Google Reader-noted by both Michelle and Kaye) capturing last night's "historic home pages," I flipped through the Newseum's roundup of today's newspaper fronts. It's pretty cool to see all 714 of them in one spot.

Some trends emerge. A lot of straightforward "Obama wins" headlines, and more of the New York Times' simple and dramatic "Obama" heds than I would have expected. Also many versions of the "Change has come to America" speech snippet that both Seattle papers used, and quite a few of the reversed-out image scheme that the P-I employed.


I'm no designer, but one of the most arresting pages, I thought, was the full-page, sepia-toned "Mr. President" image of the Chicago Sun-Times.

And I got a kick out of the New York Daily News, which must not have gotten the memo. It stuck with its apparent mission: "Sports and crime, all the time."


(Great post on this subject over at VisualEditors.com. I just noticed it, thanks to Michelle's Reads.)

'We all rise'

Among the many celebrations today and the abundant fine news coverage, this CBS News Early Show piece stands out, with 50-plus years of historical context and an excellent brief interview with the poet Maya Angelou. Good get, as they say in the TV biz.

Hat tip to the LA Times' Top of the Ticket blog for pointing me to this.


Watch CBS Videos Online

Election Day in West Seattle

Even for homey, good-vibey, community-y West Seattle, today felt especially celebratory.

I took a long Election Day walk around our neighborhood this afternoon, running a couple of errands, voting and scoring a freebie E-day cupcake and coffee, and everywhere I found people like this bike lady, totally into citizenship and encouraging others to join in. (When I took this photo, in the Junction, the bike lady's chain had just broken. If she took that as a metaphor or bad omen she didn't let on.)

It's a liberal hood, so I wasn't surprised to see all the signs of support for Barack Obama. Pretty strong though. With the exception of a couple of yard signs and bumper stickers touting John McCain, or the odd one regarding a statewide race or local ballot measure, the public displays were overwhelmingly Obama's. In the Junction -- the "downtown West Seattle" intersection of California Avenue and Alaska Street -- drivers honked their horns and waved to the Obamiacs on every corner. Before her chain broke, Bike Lady rode up and down the street, getting toots of support from nearly every passing car.

I'm registered as an absentee voter, but instead of mailing my ballot I walked it up to Schmitz Park Elementary, where Gina and Franny went to school through the fifth grade. Not the big crowds reported elsewhere in the city, but when I dropped my ballot in the box a poll worker told me it had been busy all morning.

At Schmitz Park I ran into our friends Angie and Lew, who also live nearby and also were there to vote. They let me hold their new baby Finn. Cute kid, even if he looks like Lew.





















A new trend, or at least one I never noticed before, is businesses offering free stuff on Election Day. Starbucks was giving away a free cup of coffee all over the country, and here in the Junction the awesome Cupcake Royale served up a free "babycake" to anyone who said they voted.

Cool, deal me in. My only gripe was that C-Royale and Starbucks are about a 15-minute walk apart, so I couldn't enjoy the cupcake and the coffee together. I also needed a blood draw today, so I thought maybe there'd be an Election Day special at the lab too. But no, just a regular ol' nonpartisan, full-price needle poke. As Kaye said: Communist blood-suckers!

As a political reporter and editor for most of my life, it's weird for me not to be working on Election Night. Michelle and I planned to continue the newsroom tradition of ordering pizza while the returns come in. She's not even home from work yet and the networks have practically called the race for Obama -- NBC has it at 200 electoral votes to 90 at this moment -- but there's plenty of news to come. And you can't go wrong with a slice and a beer.

Here are some other pics from my afternoon walk.

148 years of Times endorsements

At a time when many newspapers are debating whether they should make election endorsements, the New York Times not only presents its strong case for Barack Obama today, but also puts up a nifty online feature with every presidential endorsement going back to Lincoln's first, in 1860.

The page, "New York Times Endorsements Through the Ages," offers a timeline of those 38 elections, with color-coded squares indicating which party got the nod (and which was elected), a photo of the endorsed nominee, an excerpt from the endorsement and -- here's the real treat -- a link to the original editorial, usually in the .pdf format.

It's fun to look back and see where the Times was in sync with the electorate and where it wasn't -- no fan of Teddy Roosevelt, these guys.

Scanning through big batches of them you can see when the editors really believed in their pick (on Lincoln, "we shall have honesty and manliness instead of meanness and corruption in the Executive Branch"), and when, as with John Kerry in 2004, they were clearly holding their noses and making the best of a bad choice.

(The above photo, lifted from Wikipedia, is of John M. Palmer, the National Democratic Party nominee in 1896 whose candidacy wasn't helped by the Times endorsement. He lost to Republican William McKinley ... and Democrat William Jennings Bryan.)

In the pocket

I've never been a big believer in the liberal-media conspiracy.

Despite conservative complaints now as predictable as lousy voter turnout, the vast, vast majority of reporters and editors work hard to keep any kind of bias out of their stories, particularly in election coverage. If anything, liberal bias is more likely to creep into coverage of tangentially political topics, like environmental reporting.

I say that even though I do believe that most reporters and editors, in their hearts, lean to the left, and I think that many influential editorial boards are liberal, even if their mega-corporation publishers are not. Same goes for most TV news. But political reporters are equal-opportunity skewerers. The bigger problems among this lot are pack mentality and conventional-wisdom-itis.

And yet. Sometimes I'll see something in the paper that makes even me slap my forehead. Something I know will give the media-bashers some well-braised lib loin for their conspiracy stew.

Take today's Seattle Times. Given the placement, the headlines and the lead paragraphs of all the A-section stories about the presidential race, I don't see how a John McCain supporter could help thinking the paper was in the pocket of Barack Obama.

On the front page is a top-of-the-fold story headlined, "U.S. tax formula already spreads wealth." Here's the lede: "John McCain's condemnation of Barack Obama's call for shifting more wealth from richer Americans to poorer ones wins applause at campaign events, but it ignores the nation's long tradition of redistributing huge amounts of wealth through tax and spending policies."

That Associated Press story jumps to A3, which also features a large "CloseUp" centerpiece takeout story by McClatchy Newspapers under the hed, "Socialism: It's part of America's fabric." The top of this story: "'Make no mistake,' Republican activist John Hancock told a John McCain rally in this St. Louis suburb, 'this campaign is a referendum on socialism.' Republicans have been pounding that theme in recent days, even though Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama hardly fits the classic definition of a socialist."

A boldface pullout quote in the middle of the page underscores the point: "The answer is clearly no, Senator Obama is not a socialist."

Turn the page for more election news on A6, a feature about Obama's sick grandmother, "Toot," as she's called in the headline. "Barack Obama's mother was an adventurous woman who took her son around the globe," says the lede. "His grandmother was a rock of stability, giving him the American roots that would ground his teenage years as well as his career in politics."

Finally, on A7, some news about the Republicans. Two stories in fact. "McCain's Pennsylvania push not paying off." And, "Alaska paid for travel of Palin kids."

And that's it, the sum of the day's presidential election coverage for Seattle Times readers. Now, I know that news decisions like where to play a story and what hed to give it depend on a lot of factors, like the timeliness of a folo or the availability of a comebacker on other campaign developments, and that the stories themselves, in this case, are all written or compiled by wire services rather than local reporters. And sometimes the news is the news and the chips fall as they fall.

Still, wire editors here can change, rearrange or accetuate with some care, and with more in mind than the one specific story on the screen in front of them. In this case, the A1 and A3 CloseUp stories seem redundant to me, and the "Toot" story could have been dialed way, way down.

I see why conservative readers might smell a rat.

In today's New York Times, two front-page stories offer a different but equally (at least) troubling injection of bias. In these stories the problem is reaching too far to convey significance.

The Times' lead story, about how consumers appear to be taking less prescription medication as a way to save money (interesting!), isn't satisfied to leave it there. Here's the reach: "The trend, if it continues, could have potentially profound implications. If enough people try to save money by forgoing drugs, controllable conditions could escalate into major medical problems. That could eventually raise the nation's total health care bill and lower the nation's standard of living."

Wow! From -- we learn later -- a less than 1 percent downturn in the use of prescription meds during the third quarter, our entire standard of living is at risk. Note to NYT: Yeah, it is anyway.

In the off-lede story, about a big investor selling off a large stake in Ford, there's a similar overreach: "The falure of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler would have far-reaching economic and social consequences. Together, the automakers employ more than 200,000 workers in the United States and provide health care and pensions to more than a million Americans. In addition, their operations are lifelines to 20,000 auto dealers and countless suppliers, and the source of major tax revenue to states and local governments."

Double-wow. Putting aside the fact that the story doesn't persuasively make the case that Kirk Kerkorian's divestment will kill Ford, let alone the other automakers, it feels like a pretty long stretch to the collapse of my local city hall.

This kind of stuff bugs me, and it would no matter whose political party or economic interest were getting gored or whored.

It's a tough time for newspapers and the news business, as we know. Readers are dropping by the hundred thousands. Untold news meeting hours are wasted counting clicks and tweetering twits in a vain attempt to win them back.

My idea for a simple (and inexpensive) way to earn back some trust: Tell the news straight. Leave the overanalysis and the overwriting for the doofuses on the editorial page.

Poker and politics

A week or so ago, after the first presidential debate but before the veeps traded winks and gaffes, I sat down at the poker table next to Lynn, a 60s-ish regular player who always wears an oversize Barack Obama campaign button. Well, I said, how do you think he did?

She knew immediately that I was talking about Obama's performance in the debate and didn't miss a beat.

"He was OK," she said, "but I think it was a missed opportunity."

That had been my take too, just as a nonpartisan political reporter type, and I was struck that a true-believer fan would reach the same conclusion.

Our little exchange -- and that's about all there was to it -- touched off a few minutes of political table-talk, which is unusual in a poker game. At one point, a bit later, someone called the dealer Wilma by name but sort of mumbled it.

"Did you call me Obama," she asked. "Am I that bad?"

That led to a few oohs and ahs and a cross-examination of Wilma, who reversed course and said she liked Obama a lot; in fact she had just registered for the first time in her life so she could vote for him.

A few minutes later, as the conversation continued, Wilma seemed a bit embarrassed about having revived the topic.

"I'm probably going to get in trouble," she said. "They tell us there are three subjects we're not supposed to talk about: politics, religion and ... I can never remember what the third one is."

At that, a 20-something kid -- kind of an angry-looker with a little hipster stache/beard and barbed-wire tats on his biceps -- volunteered the missing subject. "Prolly women's rights," he said, and he got up to go have a smoke.

Uh, that would probably qualify as politics, I said as he walked away. Wilma, nervous: "Yeah, that wasn't it."

Whatever training the dealers get, this week the players again had politics in mind. Or at least the economy. In one game I asked my casual friend Stan, a financial adviser, how the market collapse and bailout were likely to affect his business. "People are nervous," he said. "I think it'll be good for business; everyone wants a new financial adviser. In fact, I should be at the office right now instead of playing cards."

That prompted a bit of speculation around the table about the economic elasticity of the casino biz. "This place is recession proof," someone said. "No matter how bad it gets people will think they can get lucky and win it all back."

Nods of agreement. Tales of woe. Someone mentioned the progressive bad-beat jackpot in the poker room, now up to an enticing $40,000 or so. The middle-aged grouse in Seat 9 looked at the number flashing on the screen and shook his head.

"Even if I won it," he said, "it wouldn't make up for what I lost in the market this week."

Everybody sighed. I was having a losing session, and after a couple of big winners got up and cashed out it seemed like everyone else at the table was stuck.

I have an idea, I said. At the end of the night let's see if Congress will pass a new bill and bail us all out.

'Our Times'

Highlight of the weekend, following Kaye and Val's departure, was our excursion yesterday afternoon to see my friend Denny Heck's play, "Our Times."

The play is a reflection on Washington state history from 1975 to 2005, a period that includes my years as a newspaper reporter covering state government and politics, so I was very interested from the get-go. One nice touch: Playing me onstage was Brad Pitt. (I guess Denzel was booked.)

OK, that last part isn't exactly true. In fact it's a one-man play, with Denny playing an older version of himself, 30 years in the future, and looking back on his time in Olympia. Although I don't make an appearance as a character in "Our Times," I felt like I could have been there. A lot of the people and big issues Denny recalled -- Linda Smith, Booth Gardner, the Initiative 601 budget restriction, the rise of women in state politics -- were also my reporting subjects. As personal work history alone, it was a fun trip down memory lane.

The pleasant surprise for me, though, was how well the show worked as a show. Denny's wife Paula, who is credited as producer and director, made a short speech before the play began thanking the audience and reminding us that Denny is neither a professional actor nor playwright. She needn't have apologized. The writing was tight and engaging; and Denny -- dressed, made-up and acting like an old guy -- made for a very effective storyteller and a totally believable version of himself.

"Our Times" uses a very simple set -- a couch where Denny does most of his reminiscing, and a screen for nicely coordinated yet unobtrusive slides -- and a simple, straightforward structure: The old Denny receives a letter from a college student doing research, and the memories start flowing. There's just enough humor and light moments to keep the material from sounding like a classroom lecture, yet none of it is tarted up or exaggerated to stroke egos (including Denny's) or to settle old political scores. It feels true.

I was struck again by how involved Denny has been in so much of the state's late-century story, by how many people he knows so well and, as Michelle pointed out afterward, by what a modern Renaissance man he is. Government, politics, public television, journalism, the tech boom, fiction writing and now play writing and acting; he's a guy with wide interests who seemingly just decides to do something and then goes out and does it. Very cool.

There were a couple of funny moments in the performance we saw in Tacoma, which is likely to be the show's last. One of the politicians singled out for special praise in "Our Times" is Norm Dicks, a longtime congressman and truly one of the state's political giants. Dicks is a big man -- famously a former Univeristy of Washington linebacker, which helped launch his political career -- so it was impossible not to notice him in the audience, a head taller than his neighbors, as Denny talked about him and his picture appeared on the big screen.

I'll bet he never misses a performance, I said to Michelle.

The other cool thing is that this play has been solely a benefit for various charitable causes, including a fund established by the Hecks to help Olympia school principals buy basic supplies for their students (I believe Paula is a middle-school principal there). So far the play has raised $26,000 for charity.

Yesterday's wrap-up performance was a benefit for the Obama presidential campaign. As working and semi-retired (but maybe not forever) journalists, Michelle and I didn't feel like making a political contribution, so we wrote our check instead to the Olympia school fund, and we were happy to do so. If either of us ever winds up covering the Oly school district we'll remember to declare our conflict of interest.

Thank you to Denny for a wonderful afternoon and for many years of rewarding friendship.

(Above photo from photographer Bill Cawley, via Denny's official "Our Times" site.)

A natural politician

Bruce could out-debate any of these clowns. Out-speech 'em too. Not to mention singing.

This is from a rally yesterday in Philadelphia.

The debate, you betcha!

We could go round and round on last night's VP debate -- as Kaye, Val, Michelle and I did last night over our conversation enhancers of choice -- but hell, this flow chart is so much better.

Thank you to Jason for passing it along.

'You could literally register to vote ...

... while pooping.'

Here's what I'm talking about

Harry Shearer, on Huffington Post: "As an American typically ignorant of the arcane ways of the financial wizards, what was missing for me in the scare talk last week was somebody who could put the danger in concrete terms."

Good piece, with a nice title: The Failure of 'Because I Say So.'

Sunday news meeting, comedy edition

For the second week in a row, the opening of "Saturday Night Live" last night was an all-time keeper featuring Tina Fey's dead-on impression of Sarah Palin. This one, recreating Palin's interview last week with Katie Couric, is funny not just for the impersonation and the jokes, but also because, if you saw the Couric interview, it's only barely an exaggeration.

Pretty good trick when you can make the news funny without even changing anything. Check them both out here.





We also watched Chris Rock's new HBO special last night, "Kill the Messenger." Rock's in-your-face, politically incorrect and often X-rated humor might not be for everybody, but he totally cracks me up. In this concert film, culled from appearances in New York, London and Johannesburg, Rock hits a lot of his favorite topics -- racism, relationships, politics, music -- always with sharp points that everyone else somehow seems to have missed.

Barack Obama, he said, "is so calm and cool sometimes I think he doesn't even realize he's the black candidate. Like he thinks he's gonna win this thing fair and square! Like he thinks having the most votes is gonna mean something!"

And: "Is America ready for a black president? We should be. We just had a retarded one."

Rock snuck in a bit of his concert material last week on David Letterman's show, when he followed an appearance by Bill Clinton and hilariously made the point that many others have noticed: Clinton's support for Obama seems pretty soft.

Check that out here.

All in all, a good week for political comedy. The late-night shows had a field day, with highlights captured here on Huffington Post.

A cool hand

Presidential debates come and go, but there will be only one Paul Newman. I find his death to be far bigger news today than the snoozefest that was last night's McCain-Obama matchup or (espeically) any of the post-debate analysis.

There are a lot of good Newman remembrances out there already. I especially like Manohla Dargis' slide show at the New York Times, and I'll point you also to my friend Jason Bellamy's nice look back at The Cooler.

As long as the spirit of debate is still in the air: What is your favorite Newman film, or what do you consider his best role? I hope you'll answer in the comments, M&M'ers. Here's Newman's IMDb page for reference.

Jason's already on record at his site with "Hud," from 1963. A good one, for sure. I noticed an online poll at the L.A. Times that, when I last saw the results, had "Too many good choices to pick one" with a sizable lead over "Cool Hand Luke" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." (The above picture is from a scene in "The Sting.")

I like all of those, but I think Michelle and I will probably kick off our Newman retrospective film festival tonight with "Cool Hand Luke," which we happen to own on DVD. "Butch Cassidy" is also queued up on the Tivo so that will get a viewing soon too. And I'm always ready to pair up "The Hustler" and "The Color of Money." But what I'm really looking forward to is going back to see three of his middle-to-late period movies again that are among my favorites. I really appreciate Newman from about the late 1970s on, because his looks have faded from godlike to merely extraordinarily handsome, and so he's forced to rely a bit more on his great charm and intelligence and other skills. I can relate.

And so, in this period I recommend "The Verdict" (1982), his incredible portrayal of a washed-up lawyer hoping to salvage some self-respect; "Absence of Malice" (1981), one of the better newspaper movies and maybe the only one that can make me root against the reporter (Sally Field); and "Nobody's Fool" (1994), which might be Newman's most subtle, affecting performance as an actor.

As for a verdict in the presidential debate, most of the commentary last night and this morning ran along predictable lines, with conservatives praising McCain's toughness and confidence on foreign policy, and liberals touting Obama's cool presidentialness and relaxed intelligence. Fine, but to declare a "winner" in a tit-for-tat talking points exchange seems silly to me.

Going by Judd Legum's guide to scoring the debate, which I linked to yesterday, it's hard to claim the meter moved toward either candidate. Call this one a draw and get back to me, candidates, when you've got an idea about fixing the economy.

Brain cancer in the news

Kathi Goertzen, from komonews.com

On the off chance that your giant headache today isn't caused by the economic meltdown or presidential politics -- more about both in a minute -- I want to pause briefly to consider brain cancer in the news.

I always flinch when I see stories on this topic. Too much of it is the maudlin, over-the-top "Gloria"-style coverage I can't stand. But even when it's straight-ahead, brain cancer news feels like it's hitting too close for comfort. A couple of months ago, when conservative pundit Robert Novak announced that he had a brain tumor -- and said it explained why he ran over a pedestrian the week before -- a friend wrote to me, full of outrage on my behalf: Doesn't it piss you off that this idiot gets all this coverage and you get nothing, my friend said.

Well, no, not really, but I do get tired of seeing brain cancer everywhere. Is it just me, or is this disease more in the news than it used to be? And often with a kicker that makes me feel bad, one way or the other.

First there was the University of Washington football player who was diagnosed about the same time I was. That killed his football career, but by the following spring, hey, he had recovered and made the UW baseball team! The M&M Pie in the Sky tour hit the East Coast about the same time Sen. Ted Kennedy was found to have a brain tumor, and that news was inescapable for a few days, along with opinions of his "grim prognosis." At Barnes & Noble one day I noticed that Bobby Murcer, the longtime Yankee player and broadcaster, had written a book and I couldn't help rolling my eyes as I read about his brain cancer being a blessing in disguise, or the best thing that could have happened, or some such nonsense. He died in July.

Anyway, this week, the popular Seattle news anchor Kathi Goertzen, pictured above, underwent her fourth (!) brain surgery in the past decade, partially resecting, again, a tumor that keeps growing back. This P-I report says the surgery lasted eight hours. God. For some reason, though, this ongoing story hasn't make me wince like cancer coverage usually does. Maybe it's that I've met Goertzen several times and like her. It's true what they've been saying in the local reports about her warmth and dedication to her craft. She strikes me as a good and brave person, and I'm wishing her well. That's all.

In economic cancer news, I loved these two news-ish takes on the Wall Street meltdown.

First, with typical editing aplomb Jon Stewart compared President Bush's speech on the economy the other night with his strikingly similar warnings years ago about terrorist attacks.



Then, CNN's Campbell Brown dropped all pretense of objectivity in ripping Bush and Treasury Secretary Paulson a new one. Again, the juxtaposition of old and new clips is what makes the case.




Planning to watch the big debate tonight? Now that John McCain has backed back in everyone's back to preparing their debate preview pieces. I've scanned a few of them, and for my money the best guide is this piece by Judd Legum at Huffington Post.

Legum, whose old job was monitoring post-debate punditry for Hillary Clinton's campaign, said the main thing he learned was that pundits are full of it (duh). Turn off the post-game analysis, he advises, and figure it out for yourself. He offers a few useful rules for doing so, with examples from previous debates.

Finally, could any morning news meeting be complete without a little dig at one or the other of my former local employers?

Try this local-front taste test and tell me which lede makes you want to read the story.

Newspaper A:

BLAINE -- The second gubernatorial debate of the Gregoire-Rossi rematch proved to be another bare-knuckles slug fest, this time before a pro-business crowd that gave Republican challenger Dino Rossi a home field advantage.

But while several of Gov. Chris Gregoire's positions received icy receptions -- her support of Washington's estate tax, for example -- she touted her accomplishments with optimism and confidence.

Newspaper B:

BLAINE — Gov. Christine Gregoire and challenger Dino Rossi both pledged Thursday not to raises taxes to make up for the state's projected $3.2 billion budget shortfall.

But even on that point of apparent agreement, the rivals found plenty of room for dispute during a heated hourlong debate sponsored by a business group.

To my eye, the second story, by the Times, gets quicker to the point -- breaking some news with the tax pledge -- and tells what happened instead of characterizing it, as the P-I does with its it cliched "slug fest" take.

My lesson here: Write the news plain, people.

Even blessed with a brain tumor, I can see that much.

Heck of a guy

Latest in my semi-retirement victory lap of lunches with old friends and colleagues was yesterday in Olympia, where I was happy to dine with Denny Heck, the onetime boy wonder legislator whose impressive post-politics resume includes becoming business partner of Matassa's favorite journalist.

Incredibly, Denny and I go back nearly 20 years now, to my tenure as a capital bureau reporter for the Seattle Times. By the time I got to know him Denny already had come and gone in the Legislature, having been elected at age 24 as a representative from Southwest Washington and eventually becoming House majority leader. In my time at the Capitol, Denny was chief of staff to the popular Democratic governor, Booth Gardner, and I'd characterize our relationship as cordial but wary -- both ways. He was somewhat aloof, sometimes a source, sometimes an antagonist, always a protective advocate for and adviser to his boss the governor. We had our disagreements about my coverage, I remember that, but I always respected him as incredibly smart and politically astute and -- probably, under that partisan armor -- a good guy.

Somehow we stayed in touch after Gardner left office, I left Olympia for Seattle and Denny left politics to found and run TVW, which is this state's version of C-SPAN. Later, when I decided to leave the Seattle Times and, with my friend Emory Thomas, start my own Web-based news-aggregation business, PersonalReader, Denny signed on as an angel investor.

Without his backing we really couldn't have gotten PersonalReader too far off the ground. High among the many disappointments of operating an ultimately unsuccessful business, I regret I was never able to show Denny a return on his investment.

So, when we reconnected recently via Facebook and Denny asked about the vaguely referenced health crisis that sent me into semi-retirement, I was only too happy to meet him in Oly to fill him in.

That boring subject out of the way, we enjoyed a nice meal at a cool downtown restaurant (new since I lived there) called Rambling Jack's -- turkey sandwich for me, calzone for Denny -- and gossipped and kibitzed about politics and newspapers. He just got back from the Democratic convention in Denver, and he was rapturous.

We also talked about what we both do in our retirement. Uh, I think Denny puts his time to better use. He wrote and self-published a mystery novel, "The Enemy You Know" -- not autobiographical, he says, although coincidentally about a retired Olympia pol who discovers a body at an Eastern Washington lake where the real Denny also happens to own a cabin -- and he has just written and stars in a one-man play, "Our Times," about an older character named Denny Heck who looks back on 30 years of Washington's political past.

Well, write what you know, they say.

There is one more performance of "Our Times" scheduled, in October, and I'm hoping to see it. I've also asked Denny if there are any remaindered copies of "The Enemy You Know" lying around; it's out of print now otherwise.

When he talked about both writing projects, but especially the book, his enthusiasm was infectious. Almost enough to get a junkie gambler off his lazy ass and sit him down at a keyboard. We'll see about that. Denny also claims to be a killer cribbage player. Maybe we'll see about that too.

This week in politics

I’d barely formulated opinions about all the big Democrats’ speeches from Denver this week – my take: Clintons effective; Obamas disappointing – when I heard someone on the car radio Friday morning saying something that didn’t quite make sense. She was praising and thanking Hillary Clinton, and then speculating about how cool it would be this fall if “we” could break through those 18 million glass-ceiling cracks. Huh?

Who was this anyway? By the time I figured out that “we” meant she, it was clear too that the speaker was Sarah Palin, John McCain’s surprise pick as his Republican running mate. Brilliant, I thought! Or maybe stupid! I keep changing my mind.

For most of the week, my reactions to all the political news have been pundit-free. Which has been great. Michelle and I Tivo’d and watched the big speeches together after she got home from work, fast-forwarding through the glib insincerity of Brian Williams, the Botoxed filler of Andrea Mitchell and the inane spatting of Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann. CNN and PBS were slightly less annoying. We didn’t even try pathetic Fox or the over-matched ABC and CBS.

The big revelation for me, though, came on Wednesday. Somehow the Tivo had stopped recording Tuesday night before Hillary’s speech was over, so I went online to watch the conclusion. I found it thanks to a link to Huffington Post from Michelle’s Google Reader. That and Kaye’s excellent posts on the Nitenote, I thought, were just about all I needed to take in the news and color of the convention and form my own opinions.

M&M, HuffPo and Nitenote: Call it NNN, the Nitenote News Network.

I loved Kaye’s reports on being interviewed on the street by high school students – “Stay smart,” she advised them – and on Bill Clinton’s speech – “That’s right, Mr. President, go on” – but my favorite was her gut-wrenching yet funny admission of mistaking Willie Brown on the street for Jim Clyburn.

Argh, NNN’s very own MBP.

I can’t say I agree with Kaye’s high opinion of Barack Obama’s Thursday night speech, though. She was so smitten she couldn’t get out much more than a headline, “Wowbama!” I know a lot of people agree with that assessment. Even the conservative commentator Pat Buchanan called it the greatest convention speech he’d ever heard. I don’t think so.

What did you think? I’d love to see speech reviews or overall convention impressions here from the M&M faithful.

If you missed the speeches somehow, here they are.

Obama accepts nomination:



Bill Clinton:



Hillary Clinton:



Michelle Obama:



Joe Biden:





(Top photo credit: Flickr user rklau under Creative Commons Attribution license)

Michelle Speaks

I realized half way through that I wanted to jot down the key words in the speech. Apologies that these notes are therefore incomplete:

in my own small way
see
that's why

i believe that each of us
has something to contribute
working block by block
help people
lift up their families
welfare to jobs
women get equal pay for equal work
fighting

see
that's why
to end the war
to build an economy that lifts
to make sure health care
too make sure
world class education
he'll achieve these goals
how alike we really are

you see

see

that's just not how he sees the world
he knows
he knows
one nation
neighborhoods in chicago,
hope to the mother
hope to the man
hope to the student
hope to people

barack understands
barack will fight
barack will bring finally the change

see

The barack obama I know
he's the same man
(chuckle)
(heh)
determined
determined
the affirming embrace
(sniffle)
as i tuck that little girl in
you see

this time
we listened to our hopes
dreaming
this time
a girl from the south side of chicago

single mother

white house

the world as it should be

my father's memory
my daughter's future
triumphs

everyday sacrifices
work together
hopes

See?

THX to Amy Jeffries for posting this photo under the creative commons license.