Paul Mullin accompanies this announcement with his usual broadside.

There’s a stereotype about Seattle, and especially its artists, and even more especially its theatre aritists, that we have an inferiority complex. We have trouble believing that anyone who lives and creates their art here can really be doing work of such quality to deserve national recognition. After all, if you’re such a good playwright (or actor or director or designer), why the hell are you living here?

Alas, I think there’s some truth to this myth. But I also earnestly believe that in the next few years we’re going to see the stereotype so completely exploded that it will never be able to reconstitute to haunt us again.

If this coverage by NPR proves one thing it’s this: the rest of the nation actually does give a damn about what we do in this city. They actually do care what happens to our newspapers, and they actually do want to know about what kind of original theatre we’re doing here, what stories we’re telling, uniquely, as Seattleites.

What they don’t care about, what they will never care about, is how carefully and exquisitely we craft a restaging of some chestnut from the canon, or the play that knocked ‘em dead off-Broadway last year. And this isn’t because those stories aren’t good, it’s because those stories aren’t uniquely ours. Seattle theaters that dedicate themselves exclusively to craft and the canon and providing a local outlet to New York’s latest exports are museums. And Seattle will never have as good museums as New York, Chicago or LA.

He's got a point. And if some theater somewhere in the city had been willing to work with Paul on this project (on his admittedly fast timeline), our city's professional acting talent could've read the scenes for the national radio audience.

But there wasn't, except for North Seattle Community College, whose student-actors got the chance instead.

Oprah Winfrey is expected to announce September 9th, 2011 as the final air date for her long-time running talk show, "The Oprah Winfrey Show." It's unclear what reasons are prompting Oprah to end production of her show, or if the show will move to the newly-formed Oprah Winfrey Network in 2011. [...]

In a message to syndicate stations airing "Oprah," Harpo Incorporated President Tim Bennett thanked stations for their long-time support. "Tomorrow, Oprah will announce live on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' that she has decided to end what is arguably one of the most popular, influential and enduring programs in television history," Bennett wrote Thursday in his note to affiliated stations.

I don't believe Oprah Winfrey can exist solely on the cover of her namesake magazine and cable. She lives for network. She is network television.

Thank you, Copyranter.

God, that sucks.

Keep it classy, GB.

The controversial politician is in hot seat again through the Newsweek cover headlines. And Sarah Palin cover photo right now is where she took for a magazine “Runners World” with her attire showing off her legs. Newsweek asked on the cover “How Do you Solve a Problem like Sarah?
Recently, Sara Palin attacked the Newsweek cover on her Facebook account. You have to ask yourself the question: is the cover really sexist, or is this another attention distraction on the part of the former Vice Presidential candidate and former Alaskan Governor?

What about this image?

Meanwhile in Massachusetts, a high school principal has threatened to suspend students over "meeping". From Salem News:

Danvers High parents recently got an automated call from the principal warning them that if students say or display the word "meep" at school, they could face suspension. Meep doesn't mean much, unless you are Beaker—the hapless, orange-haired assistant to Dr. Bunsen Honeydew on "The Muppet Show."

While meep may be nonsense, what it represented was no laughing matter to the high school's administration. High school Principal Thomas Murray said students were using it and other words to disrupt school in a particular part of the building on Cabot Road.

Read the full story of Meepgate here and here. (Also, following Principal Murray's Footloose-esque meep ban, Danvers High should prepare itself for several years of pep-rally cheers and valdictorian speeches composed entirely of meeps.)

Bill Keller of the NYT says it best:

"This ruling has to send a shiver up the spine of anyone who hopes for a genuinely democratic Iraq. What the court calls libel is, in most countries, called journalism.

"Indeed, if a respected journalist like Ghaith Abdul-Ahad can be punished for reporting on concerns about a trend toward authoritarian government, the verdict would seem to lend credence to those very concerns."

Nobody wants to think that all those lives were lost just so Iraq could slide back into authoritarianism... but what if it does? Will the coalition of the willing United States keep invading until it gets the government it wants?

A blooming, bleeding ink blot at the very bottom the homepage for the LA Times—an ironic nod to the past and to the future. Which, for newspapers (and ink blots: when's the last time you saw an ink blot?), is death.

AND! Did you know: the Times was bombed into rubble in 1910 by two brothers who were mad about the paper's stance on unions? Twenty-one people died. The AFL (pre-CIO) hired Clarence Darrow to represent the young loons, who eventually pleaded guilty. Darrow apparently tried to bribe the jury:

His next notable case was the defense of the McNamara brothers, who were charged with dynamiting the Los Angeles Times building during the bitter struggle over the open shop in Southern California (21 employees had died as a result of the explosion). Darrow perceived right away that the McNamara brothers were guilty, but he planned to celebrate them as heroes in the struggle of the workers against oppression and to have them acquitted by bribed jurors. When Darrow was seen standing on a street corner within view from the place where an associate of his handed over money to one of the jurors of the case, he was forced to convince them to change their plea to guilty and was able to plea bargain prison sentences instead of the death penalty. After representing the McNamaras, Darrow was charged with two counts of attempting to bribe jurors, although the brothers' guilty pleas meant that the jurors played no part in the case. After two very lengthy trials - in the first, defended by Earl Rogers, he was acquitted; in the second he struggled, defending himself, for a hung jury - he agreed never to practice law again in California and not be retried on the advice and help of his close friend John Jacobs in Greeley, Colorado.

Anyway: ink blot.

Prejean threatened to walk off King's Wednesday night interview after King asked her why she'd settled a lawsuit against the Miss California USA Pageant.... Prejean didn't answer.

King repeated: "You can't even say why you settled?"

"Larry," Prejean replied, "it's completely confidential and you're being inappropriate."

It gets worse for Prejean. A caller begins a call with, "I'm a gay man and I love pageants," and Prejean reaches to disconnect her mic. "Did she hear the question?" King asks. Prejean retorts, "Yeah, I think you are being extremely inappropriate right now, and I'm about to leave your show."

Carrie only takes questions now from straight beauty pageant fans, Larry. Video at RawStory.

UPDATE: Here's the video...

First, you have to love the way Carrie waves her book around and smiles at the camera. That sent little starbursts right up my leg. And it seems pretty clear that Carrie was prepared to continue with the interview until Larry took a call from a gay man. That was the last straw—Miss Prejean isn't interested in speaking with gay people, only persecuting gay people. And why would she take off her mic off and then sit there? This is how you take off a mic and storm off a set, Carrie.

UPDATE 2: And it turns out that Carrie isn't a child pornographer after all—just a liar.

Carrie Prejean's ex-boyfriend—the guy to whom she sent the XXX solo video—tells TMZ Carrie and company called him last week and tried getting him to "lie" and say she was 17 when she shot the video. During an audio interview with TMZ, the man—who asked us not to reveal his identity—says Carrie sent him the video when they were involved with each other in 2007. He says Carrie sent him numerous explicit videos and insists the one in question was shot when she was 20.

Lou Dobbs, the longtime CNN anchor whose anti-immigration views have made him a TV lightning rod, plans to announce Wednesday that he is leaving the network, two network employees said.

A CNN executive confirmed that Mr. Dobbs will announce his resignation plans on his 7 p.m. program. His resignation is effective immediately; tonight’s program will be his last on CNN. [...]

More recently, Mr. Dobbs’ views on immigration provoked a protest by Hispanic groups. Members of the groups complained that CNN was allowing Mr. Dobbs “to spread lies and misinformation about us each night.”

Losing Dobbs—or any right-wing mouthpiece, for that matter—is the best thing that could happen to CNN. How long till network executives can jettison Nancy Grace? CNN should embrace its identity as the news source for progressives and moderates; those are the only people who watch it anyway. Screw neutrality. Be honest about your biases, CNN. The less you're pandering to Republican viewers, who aren't watching, the more the rest of us will tune in. I'd love to see Anderson Cooper—well, there are a lot of ways I'd like to see Anderson Cooper—unbridled. He's obviously biting his tongue when he could be shredding the tea-baggers, birthers, and conservative media—and look damn fine doing it—if CNN would let him. (Via AmericaBlog.)

UPDATE: And here's the video:

Things seem to be going from bad to worse at the Washington Times. And the continued operation of the newspaper, which is owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, seems to be in serious doubt. There's already been plenty of speculation that the paper might fold or go online-only. Sources at the Times said they fear major changes and that the Moon family feud that's driving the paper's turmoil could lead to the Times shutting down in the coming months—with some suggesting that Preston Moon, the reverend's son who serves as chairman of News World Communications, the parent company of the Washington Times, came close to that decision last weekend.

Much more at TPM.

Well, Slog tipper Mark informs us that the arbitration panel has ruled in favor of Glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com. Beck decisively lost the arbitration.

WIPO's arbitration panel agreed that the website appeared "to be engaged in a parody of the style or methodology that (Eiland-Hall) appears genuinely to believe is employed by (Beck) in the provision of political commentary, and for that reason (Eiland-Hall) can be said to be making a political statement."

In a (PDF) letter, Eiland-Hall then gave Glenn Beck the username and password to the website, which is now inactive. The letter is very much worth reading, but here is the gist:

It is worth noting that Beck has never once answered the question raised by the satirical website.

Today's term: DP, an abbreviation used by some to mean domestic partnership and by others to mean something NSFW.

Now I ask you.

Who are the rightful owners of the abbreviation "DP"?

On his radio show and cable television programs, first on CNN Headline News and now on the Fox News Channel, Mr. Beck has enthusiastically endorsed dozens of novelists, a majority of them writing in the thriller genre. Mr. Beck, who now attracts 9 million weekly listeners on radio and 2.7 million daily viewers on television, often selects authors whose plots or characters reflect political stances that mirror his own. But he also promotes the work of authors who may disagree with many of his views.

“He’s our Oprah,” said Brad Thor, a writer of political thrillers who has appeared on Mr. Beck’s radio and television programs several times. “God love him, we’re very fortunate.”

In other news, Glenn Beck has appendicitis. Or does he? Jon Stewart is on the case:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The 11/3 Project
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

I’d say the biggest loser [on election night] was the Seattle Times editorial board, considering the woeful track record of its endorsed candidates within the city whose name the paper misappropriates. In fact, you gotta wonder if a lot of Seattle voters don’t take a look at the Times’ top of the ticket endorsements, and just vote the opposite....

Compare that track record to, say, The Stranger’s candidate endorsements, which saw a clean sweep in the races above with the possible exception of King County Assessor, where Lloyd Hara currently leads their preferred Bob Rosenberger by a small but significant margin. Considering which paper appears more in touch with the values of Seattle voters, perhaps the two publications should just swap mastheads?

A commenter over at HA points out that the Seattle Times endorsed Holmes over Carr so maybe the Blethen Daily Butt Trumpet isn't entirely out of step with Seattle voters. Ah, no. The Holmes endorsement was a transparent and wholly insincere effort on the Butt Trumpet's part to cover its pasty white ass. That's why the Holmes endorsement came first and then came the Butt Trumpet's endorsements of Hutchison, Mallihan, Rosencrantz, Israel (what a disappointment she turned out to be), which were of a piece with the paper's McGavick, Rossi, and Bush endorsements. The Holmes endorsement wasn't about Holmes or Carr or the city attorney's race or the crack down on the clubs or drug prosecutions or anything else. It was about creating a little plausible deniability for the Butt Trumpet. It gave the Butt Trumpet an endorsement it could hold up—a fig leaf it could don—when readers complained about that the paper's conservative, right-wing, anti-urban, anti-progressive, pro-right wing bias was showing again.

Marijuana seizures quadruple in L.A. County
The county climbs to the No. 5 spot in the state's annual eradication campaign, with more than 340,000 plants destroyed.

It looked like another dispatch from the front lines in the The Glorious War On Pot. And it read like one too:

Los Angeles County, which has seen a whirlwind expansion in medical marijuana dispensaries this year, has notched another marijuana milestone. The county has moved to No. 5 for the amount seized in the state's annual eradication campaign, with 340,187 pot plants uprooted—more than a fourfold increase. Statewide, the 27-year-old effort, known as the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, found and destroyed almost 4.5 million plants in 41 counties, up from 2.9 million seized in each of the two prior years' growing season. The amount has climbed steadily since 1996, when California voters approved the nation's first medical marijuana law.

State officials put the wholesale value of this year's eradicated marijuana at $17.8 billion.... State officials said the increase in seizures statewide probably reflects more effective law enforcement operations, as well as increased marijuana production. "I do think it's expanding," said George Anderson, director of the state Division of Law Enforcement.

Chris Jackson of the state Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement said his team spent about 15 days working in Los Angeles County with the Sheriff's Department and U.S. Forest Service. One particular three-day stretch amazed him, he said. Within an eight-mile radius of their outpost on Angeles Crest Highway, he said, agents uncovered and destroyed a dozen gardens and about 150,000 plants.

This is where War on Pot stories typically end: record-breaking seizures, hundreds of thousands of plants destroyed, and "officials" fellating themselves for a job well down while tossing around incomprehensibly huge numbers—$17.8 billion!—that were pulled out of their asses five minutes before the press conference started. This story in the LA Times had all the elements of a stupid fucking credulous hack job. But then reporter John Hoeffel goes on to do what so many other reporters have described as impossible: he goes and gets a quote from someone on the other side of this story:

Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project, ridiculed the effort. "Let me guess, they set a record number of plant seizures and marijuana has now been eradicated from California?" he quipped.

Mirken said the campaign has caused growers to move from private lands into wilderness areas. "This is an annual exercise in futility. Not only does it not do anything meaningful, it actually makes the problem worse," he said.

Wow! Other daily reporters that we've called out on their stupid fucking credulous drug war hackery have insisted that they couldn't possibly include a quote from an opponent of marijuana prohibition because they were writing law-enforcement stories, you see, and not stories about drug policy, and I would be capable of understanding the distinction if I had actually studied journamalism at college instead of the rear ends of the taller guys in the dance program. But LA Times reporter John Hoeffel shows that it can be done: a reporter at a daily paper can include a quote from a proponent of marijuana legalization in a story about marijuana eradication efforts. It's not impossible! Thanks for showing your stupid fucking credulous colleagues how it's done, John!

And Sloggers: please let John Hoeffel know you appreciate his fair and balanced reporting on the drug war by sending him an email. Please CC me.

But Crist, a married man (a legally married man), opposes gay rights. Crist backed efforts to ban same-sex marriage in Florida, he has defended Florida's ban on adoptions by same-sex couples (even as Florida places children in foster homes headed by same-sex couples), and has said that "a traditional family provides the best environment for children." (A statement that isn't supported by the facts—see here, here, here, here.)

So when Buchanan says that the GOP base has a problem with Crist where gay rights are concerned, gee, it kinda makes you wonder what Buchanan could possibly be referring to.

Details are sketchy, but numerous witnesses report that veteran feature editor Henry Allen punched out feature writer Manuel Roig-Franzia on Friday. The fracas took place in sight of [Washington] Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli’s office. Brauchli rushed to separate the two.

It should be noted that Allen is nearly seventy, but he served in the Marines in Vietnam. He also won a Pulitzer prize in 2000 for criticism. Both apparently came into play when Allen jumped Roig-Franzia.

The offending story was a "charticle" about accidental disclosures of internal government documents, including battle plans by Robert E. Lee that were used to wrap cigars, dropped in a field of clover, and found by Union forces.

The only punch-out I've ever heard involving Stranger staffers was years ago, when then-theater critic Matt Richter was sucker-punched at Piecora's by a frustrated theater person. His version of the story:

So I was walking into Piecora's with two donors, a local rock star and his wife, to pitch them an early version of the ConWorks idea. I had left the paper a few months before to launch CW. As we're standing around waiting for a table, a guy comes up to us, and asks if I'm Matthew Richter. I say yes I am, and he says his name... which I didn't recognize, but I don't recognize anyone's name, and I assumed I was supposed to know him. I put my hand out to shake his, and smiled, and said, "oh, sure, hi, how are you?" Instead of shaking my hand, he reared back and punched me in the face, and then ran out of the restaurant.

As I was getting up off the floor, I asked the rock star and his wife if they heard the guy's name. It was Jason something. I still don't remember his last name, but at the time it clicked. He was Dustin Hoffman's son in law. Seriously. He and his wife (Hoffman's daughter) had a horrible little theater company in town called The Broken Theater, and I had written about how horrid their horrid little theater company was. That's what got me punched out.

I have yet take a punch from a theater person. (Though a certain writer/director who has just arrived in Seattle may be first in line.)

Somebody punched me in the mouth outside the Stranger offices once—but I was off duty at the time. (I was also braver and stupider back then. I would handle the situation a little differently now.)

UPDATE

Whoops. Fists of fury has already been posted by Eli—but I'll leave this up for the sake of Richter's story.

Washington Post editor Henry Allen, following news reports that he punched Style reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia on Friday night, told POLITICO that he was surprised by the huge reaction in the media world.

In the old days, said the 68-year-old, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, the press wouldn't have been so shocked by an expletive-filled, newsroom scuffle...

"Back when I got into journalism, the idea that a fistfight in a newsroom would turn into a news story was unthinkable," Allen said when reached Monday evening. "The guys in the sports department at the New York Daily News, they had so many, you wouldn’t even look up."

The line that preceded the fists of fury: “This is total crap. It’s the second worst story I have seen in Style in 43 years.” (Followed by: "Henry, don’t be such a cocksucker.” Followed by a mad search for the first-worst Style story ever.)

Previously.