Pop Culture Junkette Reads the Newspaper!

As you all know, I am a Serious Radio Journalist, so it should not surprise you that I am in the habit of reading the newspaper every day. Today's highlights:

1. I have to recommend this 4-part series about how evil Dick "The Angler" Cheney is. Answer: totally fracking evil. You really have to read it to get a sense of the disdain that Cheney holds for concepts like democracy, the rule of law, and not torturing people. This is complemented today by Dana Milbank's column about the White House's attempt to spin Cheney's argument about not being part of the executive branch. And Gene Robinson's column noting that Cheney sort of immunizes Bush against a serious attempt at impeachment.

2. Yesterday's Supreme Court decision in Hein strengthens my long-standing suspicion that the entire doctrine of standing is designed to make it hard for liberals to sue. Funny how that works.

3. It doesn't seem to be in the online version, but this article on kids playing was accompanied by "tips" from a book about teaching kids to play. And not this one, which means that there are at least two books about teaching kids the importance of unstructured play. This strikes me as being unclear on the concept. Also a symptom of what I call late stage capitalism.

4. This article about Facebook photos showing up in a high school yearbook reminds me that I joined Facebook recently. Don't ask me why. Anyone else on it?

5. I'm worried about Kelly Clarkson's new album. Bad reviews of her new cd in both the Post and the Times. Don't make me consider the possibility that Clive Davis is right!

6. Shaq is awesome. But that doesn't necessarily mean that I want to watch his new show, "Shaq's Big Challenge."

7. Is anyone else sick of the learning disabled kids storyline in "For Better or For Worse"? Does anyone else even read FBoFW? I just have a hard time believing that high school kids even act that way, which makes the whole thing sort of sanctimonious. Not as bad as the inevitability of Elizabeth ending up with Anthony though. At least he got rid of the porn 'stache.

8. The article in Scientific American, discussed here, about what would happen if humans disappeared from the Earth sounds really interesting. I'm also enjoying the kerfuffle about the Esquire profile of Angelina Jolie dubbed "the worst celebrity profile ever written" by Slate.

9. This article about NBA players summer workouts reminds me of the mystery of Paulo Coelho. It seemed like every book store I went into on my trip to Asia this winter had a row of books by him, and I had never heard of him. Here's his wiki entry, which is not very edifying.

10. Greg Oden was the guest on PTI yesterday and he seemed really cool. I wish him the best. He is seriously like the oldest-looking 19-year-old ever though.

11. These ConferenceBikes look incredibly dorky.

That is all!