The above quote does dovetail nicely with a BBC World Service segment on bias in the media I heard the other day. This segment contain the very same Mr. Kurtz complaining about how news media tends to offer sensationalism and bling rather than the important stories that ought to be followed. I quite like Kurtz's reporting on the media. But his actual journalism is usually far better than his blogging. On occasion, the commentary he adds to his media round-up style of blogging is unusually notable. Most of the time, however, when I read his blog I simply use it as a media aggregator.

Would you take a USD 3,000 course to learn how to seduce women? I'm trying to decide if the report is being facetious when he writes I know that the Mystery Method must work, or weenies wouldn't shell out three grand for it. I can't really vouch for the course. In fact I wouldn't want to. My only experience with courses of this sort is a friend I met over the Internet on a mailing list arguing about the existence of miracles. When he got married, my family flew out to Oklahoma City to attend. A year or so passed and I stopped hearing from him at all. Out of curiosity, I Googled his name and found a bunch of posts in various forums about how he'd been divorced and now, apparently, spends most of his spare time hunting down and seducing pretty women. I find that a sad tale. But the table turning at the end of the WaPo article does makes it worth a read.

A big story this morning is that Clinton didn't fight for unions while on the board of Wal-Mart. On the one hand, I'm not the sort of person that thinks a bona fide lefty needs to go around trying to organize every single business. But on the other hand, this seems to me to be a rather egregious oversight for anyone remotely on the left given the top-down union busting policies of Wal-Mart. This isn't a case where the subject didn't come up and Clinton failed to bring it up. This is a case where the board tackled the issue head on and Clinton apparently idly sat and watched the board do everything in their power to prevent unionization. If that is a fair assessment of the case, I think her lack of action unconscionable. But more important than my assessment will be the reaction of the various unions that have endorsed Clinton and how this plays out in the in the minds of the union rank and file that is a significant part of the Democratic base.

In other news, my foot pain is almost entirely gone. This makes me a bit more than a wee bit chipper. Here's hoping that someday soon my 6 mile weekend run won't lay me up so badly that I can't run the rest of the week. Not that I enjoy running, mind you. I'm only in it for the end results.

And if you watch American Idol, I found the segment last night on the young woman who had been top 20 on American Juniors to be quite funny. My eldest daughter, in her worst moments, acts just like her. Prima Donna, Baby! My daughter and her friend who were watching the show couldn't figure out what I was laughing at. But there's hope for my daughter. She's still 14 and I've no qualms about giving her a fair assessment of her capabilities (or lack thereof). She does have a nice voice. She doesn't, however, have the self-discipline (as of yet) to do as much as she could do with it. She could go far with it if she set her mind to it. I try to encourage her to do just that. But in the end, it's up to her.

And someday, probably sooner rather than later, my daughter is going to discover this blog and read the above paragraph. That will be fun.

I'm off to take `lunch' during which I will not eat but will be doing Latin homework.