Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 34

More Trouble at Penn State

Now the post-Paterno coach admits he lied about seeing a video tied to rape case involving four players from his old school, Vanderbilt.  Earlier a Buzzfeed story had charged that he had suggested a player delete the video, which he denied.   He also had some contact with the alleged rape victim a few days after she came forward.

Nobel Affair

As I write, they will announced Nobel Prize for Literature in 15 minutes.  Watch below.  Once again poet-novelist-lyricist Leonard Cohen will likely NOT get it.  Update: Goes to French writer Patrick Modiano.  Roth and Murakami (and Cohen) denied again.   Modiano (see bio), besides his famed book, also wrote screenplay to well-known film Lacombe Lucien in 1973.

Protests After Cops Shoot Black Teen in St. Louis

And here we go again, not far from the Mike Brown (and Kajieme Powell) shootings.  More here.  Reuters:

A white off-duty policeman shot and killed a black teenager in St Louis on Wednesday, officers said, triggering a night of protests just miles from the site of another police shooting of another black youth in the suburb of Ferguson.

Police said the 18-year-old was armed and fired three shots while he was being chased by the officer, and they had recovered a gun at the scene.

The officer, who was wearing his city police uniform, fired 17 shots at the teenager, police added.

A crowd of around 200 gathered at the scene in the south St. Louis neighborhood of Shaw, 11 miles (18 km) south of Ferguson. Many of the protesters marched to a major thoroughfare, partially blocking traffic and chanting "Whose streets? Our streets?" as a police helicopter hovered overhead.

Teyonna Myers, 23, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper that she was the cousin of the suspect and that he was unarmed when he was killed.

"He had a sandwich in his hand, and they thought it was a gun. It's like Michael Brown all over again," she told the paper. Police have not named the teenager.

At one point, about a dozen people punched and kicked two occupied police vehicles, one that was marked and another that was unmarked. Demonstrators then broke the back window of a marked police vehicle.

Brooks: The Son Also Arises

First we had NYT Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bonner failing to disclose that his son served in the IDF during that time.  Now NYT public ed. Margaret Sullivan covers complaints that long-disgraced and fervently pro-Israel columnist David Brooks now has a son in the IDF, and never revealed.  As she notes, columnists have more leeway than reporters but still...

My take: In general, I agree with Mr. Rosenthal about columnists and their family members. I don’t think readers usually need to know what the spouses of columnists think or what brothers do for a living, or whether a daughter has joined the U.S. Army. But this situation strikes me as a more extreme case. Mr. Brooks’s son is serving as a member of a foreign military force that has been involved in a serious international conflict – one that the columnist sometimes writes about and which has been very much in the news.

Not editorial page ed. Andy Rosenthal laughably claim it's no different than if Brooks' son served in U.S. Air Force...

Closing the Wage Gap (Among Other Things)

And the only way for Sarah Silverman to do it?  Have a sex-change operation.

House of Cards

Marking this year's playoffs: Here's link to my separate page collecting some of my cool, often arty, baseball cards going back to 1887 through 1939.  That's infamous "Black Sox" star Eddie Cicotte (played by David Strathairn in the movie) at left.

'Daily Show' Hosts Debate

So Jon Stewart was out sick last night, and naturally they picked a male correspondent to sit at the anchor desk--Jason Jones, when they could have just as easily picked his wife, Samantha Bee.  But at least they made fun of it as Sam sort of became co-host later.    Also on the show: Nate Silver and Bernie Kerik!  And Jones revealed he'd just become a U.S. citizen, leaving Canada behind, eh?

Tuesday Night Music Picks

Lucinda Williams, whose new double-lp is great, does Neil Young's "Rockin in the Free World" live.    Then another one of my favorite songs, from the late Chris Whitley.  Now has well-known daughter Trixie.

Webb of Trouble

That new movie on former reporter Gary Webb and his probe of the CIA/contra/crack connection is getting a lot of ink, with Jeremy Renner in title role.  The episode and controversy happened just before I became editor of Editor & Publisher but we covered aftermath and related stories.   Here our ace Joe Strupp wrote a piece after Webb's suicide.  There really were two ways to look at it--much of what Webb wrote was prescient but he really did get a lot wrong and deserved much of the criticism.  Not sure how the movie really comes down.   And here's Strupp's scoop on the coming film--in 2008...

Hail 'Marie'

Perhaps the most unsparing song of our time, and about our time, by Townes Van Zandt, here sung by Willie Nelson.  Does not let up.  And TVZ himself here, "for the homeless of the land."