Shakespeare’s Sister is organizing a blogging alliance to bring media attention to The Downing Street Memo.

A Congressional investigation of this issue is way past due. Join the alliance, sign the petition, and help bring accountability back to American politics. Because the (oil) bucks have to stop somewhere.

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In addition to opening restaurants in China (see last post), Hooters now operates an airline. And who wouldn’t want to fly Hooters Air to a business meeting, a family funeral, or a visit with the in-laws?

But hold on there, ladies. Before you rush off to join the Hooters stewardess corps, please read these important guidelines for employment:

FYI: Delightfully tacky is a plus, but Democrats need not apply.

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Story: Hooters Opens in Shanghai, China

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Lambert of Corrente has a must-read post on Bush’s Memorial Day speech. Check it out.

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Methinks the VP doth protest too much.

Who knows where they got that idea . . . .

(Photo via Crooks and Liars, from an unrelated story)

From the Geneva Conventions, Article 17:

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In his scathing column on the fate of Ground Zero, Frank Rich details the ways in which that tragic site has been transformed from holy ground into something approaching “pure unadulterated farce.”

The process of commodifying Ground Zero began, of course, long before Bernard Kerik made use of a room with a view, or Donald Trump laid his greasy palms upon its memory. It began the moment President Bush posed on top of a smoking heap of human ashes, bullhorn in hand, and filmed a campaign commercial. (afterwards, he got back on his plane so that he could watch some baseball).

On this Memorial Day, I’m thinking not only about the soldiers who have died around the world while serving our country, but also about the nature of memorials themselves.

A 2003 article in the Christian Science Monitor, Behind America’s Rush to Memorialize Death, is a provocative Memorial Day read. In it, author G. Jeffrey MacDonald quotes scholars who question whether memorial sites such as Ground Zero or the Oklahoma City National Memorial inadvertently glamorize death:

While I’m not sure what letting the site “speak for itself” would look like, Young’s point is a good one. The biggest danger of fetishizing a place like Ground Zero — which is exactly what the Republican Party did when it turned that space into a setting for its campaign commercials and a rhetorical device for its convention speeches — is not that such treatment glamorizes death at the expense of life, but rather that it assigns fixed meanings to ambiguous events. In the specific case of Ground Zero, the Bush Administration attempted to cast a holy aura around that day’s events which was meant to ward off questions abo

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Photo from Yahoo; story here.

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If you’re not reading Attytood, the blog of Daily News reporter Will Bunch, you should be. Few bloggers combine such trenchant wit with such fine investigative acumen, consistently delivering posts that evoke both gasps and belly-laughs on a regular basis.

At a time when many newspapers are struggling to find a path through the wilds of new-media business strategies, both of Philadelphia’s major newspapers have embraced new models of communication by employing bloggers (Will at the Daily News, and Daniel Rubin at the Inquirer) and offering podcasts (as the Daily News does through Philly Feed).

Will graciously agreed to do an email interview with me in which I questioned him about the challenges and benefits of blogging for a newspaper, the history of Attytood, and the vibrant Philadelphia blogging scene.

On Blogging at the Daily News

Matt, The Tattered Coat: How have your colleagues in the newsroom reacted to your blogging? How many of them knew about blogging before you started? What has surprised, pleased, or disappointed you most about the reactions you have gotten?

Will Bunch, Attytood: Everybody’s been highly supportive – many reporters read it, although I don’t want to be too pushy about so I’m sure that some don’t. More and more, folks are suggesting potential items, in fact. My relationship with editors is a little more complicated – they want me devoting as much time as I can to the newspaper, for obvious reasons.

TC: Now that you are blogging, how does your workday differ from your days of doing print journalism? Do you tend to blog from the office?

WB: That’s funny – now that I’m blogging my work day never ends! If I’m not blogging I’m thinking about blogging. And I post many items from home, either in the early morning or late at night, so I’d say it’s 60 percent office, 40 percent home.

TC: How much freedom do you have on your blog? Is an editor assigned to oversee it? Has management ever criticized one of your posts? Are your “Daily (News) Show” posts mandated as part of your contract? Are you allowed to curse?

WB: That’s an ongoing and evolving process. The short answer is that I have a lot of freedom – all my items are posted by me straight to the blog. The paper’s online editor, Vance Lehmkuhl, reads in behind me, and on a few occasions he suggested changes in content, most of which I’ve gone along with. None of my posts have been criticized. Very recently, there’s some understandable concern about whether I should write news stories about politicians I’ve criticized on the blog. But even then, management has been supportive and proposed several solutions, which I won’t list because we’re still discussing them.

Regarding obscenity — I think the standards should be the same as the newspaper. Although God knows I do curse — more than the average person in the newsroom, but almost never at home! — I don’t think it’s essential to making an argument in a blog posting. Also, I think most cursing bloggers aren’t parents of young children…my kids are 10 and 12 and I wouldn’t like them reading something with curse words. But I do think young people can and should read about what their government is up to.

TC: How did you get the blogging job at the DN—did you go to them, or did they come to you? How closely have the editors at the paper been following your efforts?

WB: It was a combination. Last summer, I wanted to try some new things and proposed blogging. At the same time, Vance was pushing for a blog that would focus on the election. It all came together amazingly quickly, in the form of Campaign Extra!

TC: Should bloggers have the same legal protections as print/radio/television journalists?

WB: Yes.

TC: Who are your blogging role models? How do they differ from the journalistic role models you presumably had when you got into the field?

WB: I don’t think I have any one role model. I try to combine the snarkiness of Wonkette, the passion for certain causes that is similar to Atrios or Daily Kos, with my own unique brand of investigative reporting as a longtime journalist.

On Blogging in General

TC: Your blog is only a few months old, but you’ve obviously already hit the big-time as a blogger, garnering links from atrios and kos in recent weeks. How carefully were you following the blog scene before you started? When did you first start reading blogs? Would you have started one even if the DN didn’t support it?

WB: I didn’t look for blogs – they found me! Several stories that I wrote for the Daily News – and one in particular, The 20 Unanswered Questions of 9/11, which was published on Sept. 11, 2003 – generated lots of emails, and several said they’d seen it on these websites that I was not familiar with. When I checked them out, I started reading some of them, and eventually I was hooked.

I probably wouldn’t have started one without DN support – there’s enough ethical issues doing one WITH their support.

TC: Do you have an imagined reader? Who do you write for?

WB: No. Because my blog appears on a newspaper Web site, I assume that my readership is as diverse as the newspaper’s, although over time I suspect that liberal readers will come back more.

TC: I’ve noticed that you rarely comment on your own blog. Do you agree with that assessment? If so, was it a conscious decision, or one made simply because of time constraints?

WB: Early on I did, and Vance dissuaded me – he argued that I would lose the voice of authority if I commented other than exceptional cases (like technical issues). I’ve actually eased up on that a little, though.

TC: Can you name a few blogs that you feel are deserving of wider recognition?

WB: Just Tattered Coat. [Ed Note: aw, shucks. Is this guy good, or what?]

TC: How has your life changed since you’ve started blogging?

WB: That’s a loaded question – I’ve been through some recent changes in my life that had zero to do with blogging. I do worry a lot about whether blogging interferes, or will interfere, with the No. 1 most important thing in my life, which is being a good father to my two children. So far I think it’s OK, but I worry about that a lot.

On Philly and Philly Sports

TC: I feel as though I’ve read some less-than-complimentary posts on Attytood about WIP. What bothers you about the station? What do you like about it? Do you think that it presents an accurate representation of Philly sports, Philly sports fans, and the city itself?

WB: I like WIP and almost all of the hosts – except for Howard Eskin, whom I despise and whose popularity eludes me, since he makes no connection with his callers and other than some insider stuff that he gets from sucking up to a few people, doesn’t even come off as that knowledgeable, especially about baseball, my favorite sport.

My other big gripe is how they deal with the Phillies. Other than a brief surge of optimism last spring, they once treated anyone who liked the team, or even baseball, as uncool; now they harass anyone who doesn’t take the most cynical view of the team. I think it’s part of the reason fans booed on Opening Day!

TC: Many people have noticed that Philly has produced an inordinate amount of prominent blogs, including Eschaton, Whiskey Bar, Corrente, Rittenhouse Review, All-Spin Zone, Suburban Guerrilla, and now Attytood, among many others. Do you have any guesses as to why that is so?

WB: Yes, I think that Philly has a lot of thoughtful, smart and politically aware folks – but not being in N.Y. or D.C., no one could pay attention to them. Now, we’re on an equal footing, at least in this type of media.

TC: Who is your favorite current Philly athlete? What about him or her makes you a fan?

WB: Andre Iguodala – he seems like a good kid who works on every aspect of the game, especially defense, and is going to be a superstar someday.

TC: What is your favorite Philly sports story of the last few years?

WB: The 2000-01 Sixers. No comparison.

TC: What, besides a predilection for cheese whiz, defines the heart of a Philadelphian?

WB: Loyalty, roots, a desire to win but not at the cost of compromising values.

On Journalism

TC: When did you realize you wanted to be a journalist? When did you first become interested in politics?

WB: I’m from the Woodward-Bernstein generation –- I was obsessed with Watergate when I was in HS, and I never looked back.

TC: How did you break into journalism?

WB: I was an editor on my college paper, worked for a weekly newspaper in Peoria, Ill, (where I had relatives) for one summer and was a summer intern at Newsday (L.I.) the next. I was a summer replacement reporter for the AP in Providence, R.I., then got my first “real” job in Washington, Pa., near Pittsburgh, and then in Birmingham, Ala., where someone I knew through college journalism was a young editor.

Things degenerated from there.

TC: What was the toughest thing you had to learn to be a successful journalist?

WB: Approaching strangers on the street. I still wouldn’t do that in “real life.”

TC: What advice do you have for young writers who want to enter the field?

WB:Be a good reporter, with a passion for asking questions and seeking the truth, and all the upheavals in forms of media won’t matter much.

TC: What piece of print journalism are you most proud of? What blog post are you most proud of?

WB: Print: The 9/11 piece, a pre-Iraq story called “Why War?” and a nostalgic story about the last season of the A’s in Philly (1954). Blog: Writing about Rick Santorum and his ties to Wal-Mart, because of the hypocrisy factor.

On Favorites

TC: What’s your favorite book?

WB: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

TC: favorite movie?

WB: Goodfellas

TC: favorite tv show?

WB: Seinfeld, Baseball Tonight

TC: favorite album?

WB: Bruce Springsteen, The River

Thanks very much to Will for answering such a long list of questions.

You can find Will Bunch’s unique combination of Wonkette-like snarkiness and Atrios-like passion on Attytood.

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(via Banana Slug)

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The scariest thing about the Banana Slug post I wrote about this morning is that it’s not far from the truth: the AP reports that Joseph Conrad, the director of Ohio’s workers’ compensation bureau, resigned today after a scandal involving the disappearance of rare coins that the state government bought as an investment (yes, you read that right . . . rare coins that the state bought as an investment). Republican Governor Bob Taft claims ignorance, and says that ‘’I am outraged, I am angered, I am saddened, and I am sickened.”

Make that two of us.

Strange are the days when parody is less outrageous than reality.

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