Feinstein stays

Quick note from the Washington Post this morning:

Commentator John Feinstein will be back on the air for Saturday's Navy-Air Force game despite uttering an obscenity during the radio broadcast of last week's Navy game...During the broadcast Saturday, Feinstein directed a profanity at the referees after a Duke receiver appeared to push a Navy defender.

Feinstein, the author of the classic Season on the Brink, pulled himself from the air and offered to resign immediately after the game.

However, Feinstein's foul mouth is hardly shocking. I'm actually surprised he hasn't gotten in trouble before.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I went to the National Book Festival, where Feinstein spoke. What I didn't mention was that Feinstein spoke...at the kid's tent. He was there to promote Last Shot: A Final Four Mystery, his first children's book (and not to be confused with the excellent The Last Shot by Darcy Frey). Since I was at the festival, I went anyway; Feinstein is a very quotable, prolific guy who's always entertaining, and I was hoping he'd mention his new book on the Baltimore Ravens (he did).

Feinstein began his talk by referencing Season on the Brink. For those who haven't read it, you should: in this 1986 book, Feinstein followed the Indiana college basketball team over an entire season, inventing the oft-copied strategy of an author "embedding" himself with a sports team. The book was interesting on a number of levels, but most famously, paints a riveting portrait of Bob Knight, the longtime Indiana basketball coach, as a genius, taskmaster, and boor. Knight subsequently took Feinstein to task, challenging his portrayal and insulting the author in the weeks, months, and even years ahead.

So this is what Feinstein chose to open with. He started talking about how after Season on the Brink was released, Knight had called him a "pimp" in one interview and a "whore" in another. "So I'm a pimp...I'm a whore...I just wish he'd make up his mind so I knew how to dress in the morning," said Feinstein.

This is what he said. Funny, but...

In the kid's tent.

Yet, a good talk anyway.

Elaine, sandwiched between our back-and-forth messages Thursday night was a great Brendan Benson show at the Black Cat...


Brendan Benson is sandwiched between my words too

Overall, great lineup (local guy named Benjy Ferree [hear he's the bartender at Saint-Ex], the Greenhornes) and evening...nice way to work into October, which is shaping up to be a month chock-fill of great shows. My own, not too-aggressive lineup:

10/2 Robbers on High Street
10/6 Metric
10/8 My Morning Jacket
10/18 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
10/19 U2

This does not include a number of great acts including the Decemberists, the Raveonettes, Death Cab/Stars, New Pornographers, etc all scheduled to play the Dizzy. We'll discuss this week, I'm sure.

Everyone beats the Wiz

Or at least they used to. Now they just shoot them.

Am I the only person to hate the Madison Lively Stones?

Also known as the brass band that plays at Dupont Circle--often on Sunday afternoons but apparently right now, 30 feet from my location in Starbucks.



Note the crowd swirled around the band, which has been making an on-and-off racket for the past hour. If there is melody undernearth the music, I seem to be missing it, as I'd rather listen to Coldplay and My Morning Jacket on the KCRW stream while I write about health care.

I realize that the writing about health care at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday night probably disqualifies me from making any value judgements about what people enjoy and marks me as a buttoned-up suit. In fact, I have just been told by the woman sitting next to me at Starbucks that I am not just a 'curmedgeon' but apparently a 'grumpledump'--seeing as how I'm reading an academic health care journal and writing about a scholary dispute, I'm not inclined to argue.

DC protest '05, brought to you by Starbucks

Several not-totally-dissimilar events swept over DC today:

* Droves turned out on the Mall to hear Tom Wolfe, Jonathan Safran Foer, and (my priority), Jon Feinstein at the long-scheduled National Book Festival...

* While just over the ridge by the Washington Monument, the hastily-organized Operation Ceasefire put on a free, live, (and mostly mediocre) show...

* Which was mostly in support of the thousands of marchers calling for an end to the Iraq war and the Bush administration (as hundreds of counter-marchers called for an end to the marchers)



While this made for some serious congestion and amazing people-watching downtown, I was walking away from the White House and had just passed the IMF (which, still ringed by police and security barriers, had to deal with its own set of demonstrators this morning), when I saw something truly amazing:



Now, Elaine, I'll grant you that demonstrating can be a tiring business. But you're a bit older than me (and have always been more socially-conscious), so I bet you can remember the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999. If memory serves, the anti-WTO demonstrators got so violent that riot police resorted to rubber bullets and tear gas; along the way, a Starbucks or two was smashed up. Subsequently, the company became more and more a symbol to these anti-corporate forces; an easier target than, say, a McDonalds, because the product being gentrified was as simple as a 10-cent cup of coffee. Yuppies might not be buying a Big Mac every week but they sure can treat themselves to a latte.

What's amazing to me is, despite the fervor against the Iraq war, against this administration, the level of civil disobedience is nothing compared to the anti-globalization movement that seemed poised to overtake America just six years ago. That movement's still around and played a small role today, but the vast majority of protesters could care less about destroying Starbucks--where else would they get their coffee?

Just got back from a family dinner; my New Orleans-loving aunt and uncle were bemoaning the likely catastrophe likely to unfold when Hurricane Katrina makes landfall in the next twelve hours. Chilling stuff.

Still scary, but less in the wrath of god-sort of way and honestly kind of amusing, is a rare video look behind the scenes in North Korea. CNN somehow got their senior asian correspondent and a couple of cameramen into the country, with this five-minute report popping up on their website today.

Growing up with Peter Jennings

Peter Jennings, age 67, died yesterday night of lung cancer.

When I was growing up, my parents had taken control of the TV every 6:30pm to watch World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. When I was younger, I would pout but my opposition didn't prevent the development of a particular outlook on the world because of Jennings' news coverage.

Though I was only 11, watching his show gave me an understanding the fall of Communism as a momentous event bringing people together and reuniting families. I didn't understand the political differences but I could at least appreciate the weight of what was happening. Those early impressions drove my interest in journalism and eventually in public interest work.

The ability to communicate with even an elementary schooler was unique to World News Tonight: Jennings focused not only on explaining the issues in real news events but also on personalizing the story.

That is why I will so sorely miss Peter Jennings.

College chameleon

Here I am.



A West Philadelphia wi-fi cafe that sells...cereal.

The revamped Penn campus is like nothing I remember from my freshman year. Glass-and-iron buildings have sprouted out of parking lots and from street corners. Chic bookstores and movie theatres have replaced worn-out campus diners. Most jarring, Ghettomagic has closed; a yoga studio has opened next door. You can't drink 40s in there!

This post already feels like a cliche--"college grad returns to alma mater, is stunned by changes." But it's not like there were a few new trees planted or a new building finished (though that's happened multiple times over). The Penn that I graduated from--the Penn that this year's college graduates saw as freshmen--is being built over, brick by brick. And with a mugged roommate, a stolen bike, and way too many trips to crappy Thriftway for groceries among my college memories, this generally seems like a good thing.

Elaine, we've both seen gentrification firsthand; you, first in the pockets of NYC around Columbia and then down in DC; me at college and also in the District; both of us in Baltimore. Yet I can't think of a single moment when I've been more astounded by an urban transformation. Maybe it's because I haven't set foot on the campus in several years; maybe it's because the concept of an Internet cereal cafe would have been laughable three years ago and is still-amazing. But mostly it's because Penn has pumped billions into a few city blocks over a decade and the results today are mind-blowing.

When Penn's projects took the form of "Penntrification," the locals were pissed by the rising housing prices. When it took the form of Izzy and Zoe's, we were pissed by the rising sandwich prices. But when it takes the form of a mid-city oasis, I'm just pissed that my four years at Penn came four years too early.