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Sunday, June 26, 2005
StevenIWeiss.com launched, which is now my more official home blog.
Steven I. Weiss 8:08:00 PM
Monday, April 11, 2005
Has golfing equipment improved scores? I was wondering about that over the weekend, as Tiger Woods, who won his fourth Masters, faced off against a field that included Jack Nicklaus who won his four Masters some time ago.
Comparing the winners since 1970 with the winners before 1970, it seems the average winning score in the latter term is about three shots below that of the initial term, 278.38 vs. 281.61.
And Woods vs. Nicklaus show far more disparity: Woods has won by an average of 9.25 shots fewer than Nicklaus did over each of the pair's four tournaments.
For one area where performance likely won't improve, see this Slate item on why baseball pitching velocity doesn't grow over time.
Steven I. Weiss 4:27:00 PM
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Juan Cole on Paul Wolfowitz's Arab girlfriend:Actually, if the article is true, it is the best thing I've ever heard about Wolfowitz. Well, then he's been intentionally missing out on the best part of Wolfowitz for some time, because it's common knowledge.
Steven I. Weiss 2:43:00 PM
Wurtzel herself has a word for this: in her second book, Bitch, she coined the term "mental-health pornography" in a discussion of our culture's obsession with beautiful, suicidal women. Have you noticed this obsession? Neither have I, but it's just reported out as something everyone grants.
Steven I. Weiss 2:43:00 PM
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Jarvis on the AP's two-lede approach: "I have a different problem with this plan: It wastes readers' time."
Exactly! The original statement explicitly declared that this was the intention:The new initiative is in response to requests from many editors who want to be able to offer readers "something fresh so they will want to pick up the newspaper and read a story, even though the facts have been splashed all over the Web and widely broadcast." The AP: here to repackage facts you already know...with cuter lede paragraphs.
Steven I. Weiss 1:32:00 PM
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Jarvis: "The only problem for Rather was that his last big story was Rather."
Steven I. Weiss 2:50:00 PM
Monday, March 07, 2005
You know a man is out to lunch when...
David Horowitz writes:Peter Beinart is also a leftist but a moderate one who could plausibly be called a liberal. He wrote a sharp critique of the left in The New Republic calling on liberals to purge Communist fellow travelers from their ranks. Beinart's essay -- rather famously -- was using the analogy of Communists in the ranks, which should be apparent to anyone even remotely aware of his article, or to the fact that Communism just isn't the big issue in America anymore.
Steven I. Weiss 2:57:00 AM
Sunday, February 13, 2005
I'm shocked -- shocked -- at Eason Jordan's resignation. It seemed all along from a casual glance at what was available that he'd been well within the reasonable limits of conversation. The way it seemed to me, he was pissed that dead journalists were being called "collateral damage" when they were actually viewed incorrectly as legitimate targets. It seems reasonable to get pissed off and respond -- and even perhaps go a bit too far in one's response and then have to walk it back to rationality.
But to resign without the real story ever having come out is just wacky.
My initial instinct is that he figured he was on the outs anyway and that if he's resign without the tape he'd have a better chance of being rehired without controversy later.
Did bloggers do this? If the video had come out and it turned out to be bad, I'd say "sure." But this seems so premature, so odd, that it simply doesn't make sense to say that.
Could Jordan really have resigned because he thought that a story that was gaining no groung in the mainstream media simply wouldn't die down in the blogosphere?
The sex angle doesn't make a lot of sense, either:Several CNN staffers say Jordan, who was distraught about the controversy, saw the handwriting on the wall in tendering his resignation. But top executives are also said to have lost patience with the continuing gossip about Jordan, including his affair with Marianne Pearl, widow of the murdered reporter Daniel Pearl, and subsequent marital breakup. Yeah, I suppose that explanation might be meaningful if Jordan worked for some old-boy law firm (but wasn't a partner), or if he were a politician...but a CNN exec? Please, that just sounds stupid.
Steven I. Weiss 1:57:00 AM
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