Joel Achenbach and Marjorie Williams
Marjorie:
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StumbleUponFirst, I gotta say something about the Pulitzers. I think yesterday was one of the best days for the Post since I've been there. There was such a warm feeling in the place, the speeches by the winners were moving, and even the owner got a prolonged ovation. In how many newsrooms would the staff applaud the owner like that? I'm sure you saw Jeff Toobin's piece in The New Yorker, saying that Don Graham wants to run a safe, risk-averse, "local" newspaper, and that the Post is not as literary as, say, the New York Times. I'm thinking The New Yorker might want to consider a retraction at this point. Just take it all back. "Never mind." There was nothing safe about any of the stories or photographs that won, and the writing was the definition of literary journalism. Meanwhile, news has yet to reach Washington of any Pulitzers won yesterday by the Times. (Yes, I'm gloating! Try it some time; it's wonderful.) Perhaps the Times previously received some unpublicized Pulitzers in the technical categories, like Best Ink, or Best Headline Font.
The truth is, the Post should have won more. David Finkel's reporting from Kosovo was just about the most amazing feature writing I've ever read. I'd give anything to have written a story, just once in my career, as terrific as his piece about the Kosovar woman who had to choose between her family and her first true love.
I know I'll never win a Pulitzer because I increasingly forget to put human beings in my stories. More and more, I write about stuff like the origin of life--you know, did it happen with a single replicating molecule, or with a larger sack of molecules. I've gone molecular in my work. It's a well-known fact in journalism that when you go molecular you can never go back. Soon I may stop writing about liquids and solids, because they're just too flamboyant, and instead write only about gasses. My next book will be called Trends in Vapor.
Thanks for your eyewitness report on Saylor, who seems to be turning into the northern Virginia version of Donald Trump. The big house he's building is forgivable--if I had a lot of money I'd build a big house, too, or at least a house large enough that it could plausibly have stone lions out by the driveway, and an official name, like ThrogsGate. (I grew up in a vintage Florida cracker house, wood frame, and one of its most endearing features was the name above the front door: Woodland Echoes. Remind me that we need to continue that thread about childhood sights and sounds. The other day I was feeling blue and suddenly heard a song by the Allman Brothers, and it reminded me I needed to head south, just for my sanity. A beach would be nice. Yes, immediate surroundings shape a person, as you said yesterday so eloquently regarding Elián, but your culture also puts a deep imprint on your psyche, and you wind up spending much of your life trying to get back to some dimly remembered beach, to some moment when you felt perfect. Back to that smell of salt water.)
Did you think that Saylor's gift of $100 million for this online university was totally self-aggrandizing? It struck me that way, but maybe I don't give him enough credit. Why can't he just give some money to one of the myriad existing institutions, charities, and nonprofits? There's nothing wrong with starting something new, but the Internet culture has become a cult of the new, which is why companies that have never made a dime in profit have market evaluations twice as large as General Motors. Michael Lewis got it right.
Moms hunting Internet pedophiles is a great story of our times, and I'm guessing that what you found creepy about the Mom in this case--correct me if this is not right--is that she was rather invasive herself, co-opting the thoughts and passions of her kids, using them for what had become an obsessive quest. In any case, you can imagine that Hollywood could do something with this material. Julia Roberts is the Mom. Ideally there'd be some twisted romantic complications--like, she falls in love with one of the sickos! In the teen-slasher version, the pedophile-hunting cheerleader is closing in on the pervert, only to discover that the vile e-mails are coming from ... inside the house! (I'd be shocked if this plot isn't already in the pipeline out there. You've Got Mail meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre.)
Back to you, Marjorie.
Yours,
Joel
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Reader Response from The Fray--to be read after the final entry:
Let me get this straight: they give out Pulitzer's for criticism [Monday]? Please--my heart is pounding, my blood pressure is rocketing, my hands now shake, please dear, please, please tell me, where do I sign up?
--Old Timer [who is well-known in The Fray for his expertise in this area.]
(To reply, click here.)
Re: Elian Gonzales. I believe that immigration laws should be as open and welcoming as possible. But at the same time we need to look at the long-term situation of the country the people are fleeing. There is not always a whole lot we can do, and we also run the risk of becoming control freak America with it's thumb in every pie--oh, hang on, we already are that. Well, anyway, my point is that instead of trying to pass a bill to make Elian a citizen, why don't we lift the embargo and make life a little better for all Cubans?
--Anne
(To reply, click here.)
"That's exactly what Castro wants us to do", I believe, is the stock response to either ending or continuing the embargo.
--Steve Dowling
(To reply, click here.)
[This response almost silenced David Edelstein, but not quite:]
The embargo is a 40-year hissy fit, and it's time to give it a rest. Say what you will against Castro (I can say plenty), he'd have been long gone if the embargo had been lifted 25 years ago and Disney and all the other U.S. corporations had moved in with their sundry inducements to free (sic) enterprise.
--David Edelstein
(To reply, click here.)
The question of why people hate Janet Reno [Thursday] is a bit intricate and since I do hate her, I'd like to take a stab at it--the question, not her (I don't hate anybody that much). Reno reminds me of the Greek tragedy Antigone which shows us that strict enforcement of the law, by the book, isn't always the best thing. The Waco invasion wasn't the best thing, for example. I believe the law justified her actions, that the operation was by the book. But that doesn't mean it was a good thing. With Elian, there's that potential again that Reno will embark on the legal course, but that it won't be the morally right course.
Reno does not respect people who defy her. She assumes they are wrong and she acts on that and she has a tremendous amount of power to enforce her interpretation of law. This is the crux of my anti-Renoism: She doesn't talk to people, she barks orders at them. When people ignore the lectures they get punished. Hey, that's her job. But it'd be nice to have a more philosophical sort wielding all that power--someone with a better sense of proportion who realizes that every act of defiance is unique and deserves unique treatment.
--Michael Maiello
(To reply, click here.)
Don Porges writes in The Fray about Thursday's entry:
The definition and connotations of "dice" are much more precise in naming the objects in question. My old TI-99 had a "random number generator" command in its BASIC programming. Since it was just code, it resembled nothing that would help baby get a new pair of shoes. Besides "dice" fits into a headline nicely.
--Charles
(To reply, click here.)
[No proposals this week. But that doesn't mean the Breakfast Table went unappreciated:]
These guys were the best. And that's granting that there were some close competitors. But Joel and Marjorie are the BT gold standard. The King and Queen are dead! Bring on next week's random number generators!
--Mike
(To reply, click here.)
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