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Meghan Daum and Rob Walker

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from: Rob Walker

Old Money

Posted Friday, March 2, 2001, at 5:10 PM ET

Hi, Meghan:

I'll explicitly second the point about Nirvana Unplugged and Steely Dan. And I'll give you the last word on Zionism and the MSNBC photo contest, not to mention disappointment and despair. To make up for earlier long-windedness, I'll be mercifully brief in my final remarks. Here goes.

The most interesting Times obit since Monday appears today, and it's of Henry Wade, the former Dallas County D.A. who was the Wade in Roe v. Wade. He also prosecuted Jack Ruby, was called a "bumpkin" by Ruby's lawyer, and in turn took to intentionally mispronouncing the name of lawyer, Melvin Belli, as "belly." Haw.

On the subject of The New Yorker, I just got around to reading the profile of Bob Kerrey (not available online, it seems) in the current issue, and it's pretty good. In one odd throwaway passage, the writer notes that during one of her interviews with Kerrey, he was tearing pictures out of the paper to make a collage and said "he was planning to try to make a collage each day, and that he found the exercise 'therapeutic.' " Eh?

On the subject of the Mardi Gras cleanup here in New Orleans, it was still ongoing as of yesterday, says the Times-Picayune, which reports having spotted, among other things, "a puddle of Hurricane-tinted vomit" in the French Quarter. (Again, no link is currently apparent on the paper's site.)

On the subjects of promotion and diaristic writing, I would like to promote the excellent "Diary" entries this week, starting on Monday, by my friend and former colleague Hugo Lindgren. Having declared my bias, I nonetheless insist that they are well worth reading.

On the subject of weather, it is 78 degrees here and a bit sticky.

And of course: Happy birthday, also, to Eddie Money. He is 52.

Good luck promoting the book. Take good care of Loretta, and keep her out of the MSNBC photo gallery. Bye now.

rw

the breakfast table
entries
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from: Rob Walker

Old Money

Posted Friday, March 2, 2001, at 5:10 PM ET
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Meghan Daum's essay collection, My Misspent Youth, will be published in March. Rob Walker, a journalist living in New Orleans, writes Slate's "Moneybox" column.
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Reader Comment From The Fray:


I have a suggestion for some 'reality based' TV programs. How about Refugee Boat? We could take contestants and put them in a third world, war torn country and give them thirty days to figure out how to make a raft, find food and get set afloat before despotic soldiers order them to dig their own graves.

Or, how about Street Survival? In this one, the contestants must survive three months on the street with only the clothes on their backs and no identification. They would be required to jump trains, sleep outdoors in alleyways and in shelters, and generally try to survive their new found compatriots, welfare rolls and dumpster diving.

And, how about this beauty? Prison Guards would be a reality based show where one would become a prison guard in one of the most feared prisons in the United States. In this show contestants get thirty days training and then must work as a prison guard in the most violence-prone sectors of the prison for at least two months. Talk about ratings! I know that I would personally be glued to the screen.

Let's give vanity and greed a real price. Instead of paying people to play the mind games most of us have to wade through in our regular work week, let's up the ante a little. I can't wait until the spotlights burn and we get to see one of these numbnuts have to face a freight train's worth of trouble rushing headlong into them.

--Rogue

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