THIS JUST IN

Since the Post has decided to make a cause out of running shorter stories, I thought I'd help them edit down this front-page story: Spoiled suburban kids like brand-name crap. I mean, who knew?

To be fair, the story has a great, great lead:

Brandon Singleton was 8 when he first saw the movie "Clueless," and it changed his life.

I knew a guy in high school whose life was changed by a movie. Only that movie was "Cocktail," and instead of buying a $450 pair of shiny black pants, he spent far more sizable sums on a degree from the Bartender's Academy (as Seen on TV!) At last report, though, he has yet to shack up with Elizabeth Shue.

THE VICTORS WRITE THE HISTORY BOOKS

Given the calm, rational, even-handed way people have responded to the recent election, I couldn't help but find this funny:

For roughly a decade, a film has been shown to visitors at Washington's Lincoln Memorial, depicting historic events that have taken place there — from civil rights marches to antiwar demonstrations.

Then, one day the Rev. Lou Sheldon saw it. "It showed only those liberal, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marches," said Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition.

Sheldon would like film of some conservative marches intercut as well, though it is unclear whether any major conservative marches have taken place at the Lincoln Memorial itself, which is the film's focus.

Funny, the only conservative-inspired march on Washington that I can think of is this.

It may be a scary four years, but at least it will be rife with irony.

NOW I'M IN THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT

Forget the Christmas decorations already beginning to pop up across the DC area's more tired-looking shopping centers. If you really want to announce to a Nation Divided(tm) that the holidays, with all their promise of hope and healing, are on their way, try something like this on for size:

I'm not particularly surprised that a coworker ran into something like this at a Cracker Barrel in quasisuburban Maryland (though I'm a bit more surprised that my coworker was inside a Cracker Barrel). What *does* surprise me is how many variations of this image pop up when Googling "confederate Santa," not to mention the specificity of the details. Turns out Mssr. Claus is a Colonel in the CSA, fully entitled to all the privileges and responsibilites that implies. (Who knows, perhaps his North Pole plantation wasn't sizeable enough to rate a General's commission.)

Kris Kringle: Another uniter, not a divider.

READIN' IS TOUGH. TOUGH WORK.

I've joked with friends that one of the underlying, sub rosa themes of this past election is perhaps best exemplified by the tagline from one of Fox's quality reality TV programs, the gist of which apparently involves taking Ivy league MBAs and shooting water balloons at them ("We're sticking it to the smarties!") Happily, my brethren in the news media are finally getting with the program:

In an effort to win new readers, Downie said Post reporters will be required to write shorter stories. The paper's design and copy editors will be given more authority to make room for more photographs and graphics.

I'm going to resist the facile comparison to USA Today. Lest we forget, the much-maligned McPaper has actually started running longer stories. They've also shown a willingness to take risks, something the WP appears to have gotten a bit leery of, most notably during the run-up to Gulf War Deux (by burying stories with cautiously worded headlines like "Excuse Us For Saying This, But Administration WMD Intelligence Might Be A Teensy Bit Off. Or We Could Be Wrong" on page A95). And there are good ways and bad ways of trying to make a publication more engaging. At one point in the early 90s, the picture-to-word pendulum at Time Magazine swung so far away from literacy as to run a cover story headlined "EVIL: Does it exist?" that weighed in at about 1,800 words. Which works out to about a half-word for each year people have been pondering this question.

And the Post, of course, is one of the best newspapers in the country, so I'm sure they'll find an intelligent way of doing this. But the next time they decide to run a story about an all-you-can-eat steak joint on page A1, they'll have to find a way to do it in less than 3,000 words.

HEAL THE WORLD

HEAL THE WORLD

So, even before the election, I tried mightily to bring people together. But now, in this deeply divided country, is there any force strong enough to bring the coastal elites and the heartland value-types together?

I boldly say yes.





Forgive me if I get a bit emotional here.

BOO!

BOO!


Okay, so this maybe this isn't as scary as the previous photo. But imagine these guys up past their bedtime, on a sugar high...