Developing trends

Once again, C-Murder proves to be a poor choice of nickname for someone accused of murder. (Cf., this sad tale.)

Weenie bashes weasels and foreigners, prospers

Just when I thought Michael Graham was at home looking into podcasting, maybe, or comparing brands of fish sticks on his blog, along comes Marc Fisher with the depressing news that Graham's become something of a hot property since getting canned. Graham rails against "corporate weasels" and "oversensitive" Muslims who took exception to his caricaturization of Islam as a "terrorist organization." He fills in at talk radio stations across the country via a studio at the Heritage Foundation while he weighs job offers. But what he really wants is to return to D.C.

"For me to be sacked for saying what I believe -- it is heartbreaking for me to leave WMAL," Graham told Fisher. "I just don't get it: I got your station more publicity than you'd had in five years, and you fire me? What did I miss?"

He may have missed the fact that it wasn't exactly the kind of publicity WMAL was looking for, but more important that ratings plunged when Graham was on the air. For a guy who makes his bones supposedly seeing through b.s., I'm surprised he hasn't addressed this part of the story.

Icky

I'm excited about the National Folk Festival taking place next month, but I wasn't pleased to learn it's being cosponsored by Swedish Match, a company that makes snuff, chaw, pipe tobacco and smoking paraphernalia. What's next? Allowing a company whose products have killed millions of people to build a bioresearch center downtown?

Seriously, though, the folk festival should say thanks but no thanks to a company that profits from causing cancer of the esophagus, mouth and larynx and is just plain a disgusting habit. Or maybe they think wading in ankle-deep dip juice to see Ralph Stanley will add some authenticity to the whole venture?

Click here to see some lovely pictures of what smokeless tobacco does to users' mouths.

Thank goodness for Google alerts

Or I would have missed the retelling of this tidbit about our mayor, from a story about unmarried politicians:

Former Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder, who was single, came under fire in 1990 after using a state helicopter to rendezvous with the ex-wife of a billionaire who had been one of Wilder's financial backers. The story even made the London tabloids, because the woman had posed in the British version of Playboy.

Doug Wilder has brass ones. He was already my favorite politician ever, but now I'm considering carving a statue of him out of the support beams in my basement.

It sucks less

There's been a lot of blog chatter about the search for a new slogan for Richmond; John M. nails it like a Roman soldier.

Pigs fly, Saints win the Superbowl, Holmberg strings sentence together...

The Times-Dispatch unveils a blog! What's next? A lady columnist?

Real-life lawn care Pt. I

It had been a long day. I had to get up at 4 a.m. to go to D.C. for a story, and as I returned to the homestead, tired and cranky, I saw a guy at the sidewalk next to my house throwing clumps of dirt in the air with a shovel.

I decided to see what he was up to.

"I'm trying to get this grass out of the street," he said, as if he was surprised I hadn't caught on immediately. I hadn't really paid it much mind before, but there was some grass growing in the gutter. This guy has one of the nicest cars on the block, and I guess he didn't like driving over it.

"I'll go get you a bag," I said in my best passive-aggressive tone. I came out and started cleaning up after him huffily, but he didn't notice. After he cleaned the area in front and behind his car, he just kept going, the length of my side yard, clearing the unmowable crap grass that had grown over the curb. "You know," I thought, "That looks pretty good."

"Hey, don't worry about the leaves," I called as he was scooping them out of the gutter onto the grass. "Let's leave them for the city to pick up next week." (Nice, huh?)

"You got a rake?" he asked. Why yes, in fact I do.

For the next fifteen minutes or so, he scraped, and I cleared up. I was tired as hell, but goddamn if the sidewalk wasn't looking great.

After we finished I went over and introduced myself. "You haven't met Ron yet?" called out one of my elderly neighbors as he passed by. (It's more or less impossible to do anything in my neighborhood without some unsolicited comments from passers-by.) "He's a pillar of the whole situation."

Indeed he is.