Year: 2005

We have a number of regular participants and occasional contributors to this blog who reside in London or vicinity. Please sound off so we know you’re okay.

PAD

Johanna Draper-Carlson was, and is, a bigger supporter of “Fallen Angel.” So when she expressed enthusiasm about the upcoming Spike one-shot, I offered to send her the completed script. She read it and loved it. Her comments can be found in the July 5th installment of her blog, “Cognitive Dissonance.” If I do this right, the link below should take you to it.

http://www.comicsworthreading.com/blog/cwr.html

PAD

I think I speak for most New Yorkers when I say–without the slightest intention of sour grapes–good. One less thing to worry about.

PAD

So to give Kath more time to work on the costumes, Ariel and I took Caroline to a local kiddie amusement park that she’d never been to. Dead center of the place was a carousel. Caroline absolutely loves carousels, ever since Kath took her on the main one at the Magic Kingdom in Disneyworld. Having bought unlimited ride passes for the sisters, I stood behind the fence as Caroline was seated on one of the horses, Ariel one horse over. The young lady running the ride clipped Caroline into place with a seatbelt that snapped behind her.

The carousel began turning. It was going at a pretty brisk pace, but Caroline was undaunted, grinning like a loon.

Then I noticed she appeared to be shifting off-center, hanging more toward the outside. That was when I saw that the belt had somehow come unclipped from behind her and was dangling uselessly on either side. Ariel hadn’t spotted it yet. The only thing that was preventing Caroline from being flung off the carousel at high speed was her own grip on the pole.

The operator was in the middle of the carousel. I shouted over the music, “Shut it down! She’s not buckled in” as I yanked open the gate. The operator saw it and killed the power, but there’s no braking mechanism; it moves until it stops. Ariel, realizing, grabbed Caroline’s foot, but Caroline was now 3/4 of the way off the horse.

I ran alongside the carousel, grabbed one of the freestanding poles, and jumped on while it was still spinning, bounced between two horses like a pinball, got to Caroline and yanked her back up onto the horse. Caroline continued to grin. Not a trace of concern. I buckled the seatbelt around her myself this time, testing it. It must not have fully engaged the first time. The operator asked if I’d like to stand next to Caroline and just ride along, which was fine by me.

Ariel then went off to drive the Go-carts. And Caroline, who didn’t have to get off the carousel because there really wasn’t a line of kids waiting to get on, proceeded to ride to her heart’s content.

Forty five minutes.

Forty five frickin’ minutes of non-stop carousel. The more nauseated I got, the happier she got. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore, forcibly removed her from it and said, “We’re doing something else now.” I carried her away while she was kicking and screaming and yelling, “Horse! Horse!”

Later, as Caroline rode on the teacup ride with Ariel, I called Kath and said, “Just out of curiosity, how did you get Caroline off the merry go round at Disneyworld? Did she eventually tire of it?”

“No,” said Kathleen. “I had to carry her away while she was kicking and screaming.”

Twenty years from now, when they ask me at what point I knew she was going to be a jockey, I’ll be able to tell them. Although she’ll probably be over six feet tall, so maybe that’s not really a career path for her.

PAD

TOKYO (July 3) – Japanese coast guard officials said Sunday they believe an underwater volcanic eruption has caused a 3,300-foot high column of steam to rise from the Pacific Ocean near Iwo Jima.

The vapor was reported Saturday after Japanese troops stationed on the small island observed the massive, cloudy plume rise from the sea about 30 miles southeast of the island, said Maritime Self-Defense Forces Hiroshi Shirai.

Defense officials who flew over the area in a helicopter said the surface of the water appeared red where the column was reported, which could indicate underwater volcanic activity, Shirai said.

Okay, now honestly…am I the only person who read this and thought it’d be cool if Godzilla emerged from the midst of the smoke?

PAD

Got an invitation to the advance screening for the Fantastic Four movie. Not TERRIBLY in advance. It’ll be next Thursday at 7 PM. But hey, at least I’ll have seen it before Shore Leave, a convention in Maryland I hope as many of you as possible will be attending.

PAD

When I was getting my BA in journalism, one of the subjects that came up, naturally, was anonymous sources…a staple of journalism. And what we had drilled into us was: You don’t give up a source. Not for any reason. Not ever. To do so would create a chilling effect, making other sources believe that they dare not approach the media for fear of retribution.

(And as an aside, there’s a difference between anonymity in newspaper articles versus on the net. The latter is people who want to be able to state their opinions without having to attach their names to them. The former are people who, for instance, may see their bosses engaging in wrongdoing and feel they should be stopped, but don’t want to throw their lives or careers away in doing so.)

We knew going in that there was no such thing as journalist/source confidentiality. The reason is that it’s impossible to determine what qualifies as a journalist. Lawyers go to school, pass a bar, they’re lawyers. Same with doctors. But what constitutes a reporter is murky at best, and has since those days gotten even more fuzzy. Is Harry Knowles a reporter? What about me? What if someone is approached by a grand jury because he knows something about a murder and he happens to publish a local shopper, or writes for the PTA newsletter. Does HE claim privilege?

So we knew going in that there’s no mechanism of law to protect journalists should grand juries come calling. Some people claim that journalists are acting like they’re above the law. Wrong. Journalists are taught that the law affords them no protection. If you’re asked about a source, you clam up, and if it means going to jail, then you go to jail, because that’s the job you took on and that’s the way it goes.

I know this. All reporters know this. And Time Inc. sure as hëll knows it.

It was painful enough watching the media be the government’s lapdog post 9/11, but this latest development–in which Time Inc. is knuckling under to grand jury pressure over revealing sources, even though the reporters themselves were ready to do time under a contempt citation rather than give up their sourcess–trumps it all. It sends a frightening double-edged message: Sources, beware. And grand juries, go after reporters. In serving its short term needs, Time has guaranteed long term problems. Because when the Fourth Estate stood firm and united, there was little point to courts trying to pry info out of reporters. They knew it was a waste of time. Now they know there’s cracks in the foundation. So Time has ensured MORE problems for reporters, rather than less.

I know I personally will never be buying another copy of Time magazine. That’s not out of a sense of desire to boycott, but simply because I’m going to assume from now on that whatever stories Time covers, there will be sources who won’t dare go to them, so why bother getting incomplete coverage?

PAD

(PS–Ignore the signature at the bottom. I, Peter, posted this. I posted it while working on Kath’s computer and forgot to log out of her Movable type account and move into my own.)

(Should be fixed now — GH)