Burnettiquette

Swine Flu the key to peace in the Middle East?

An Israeli health official yesterday called for world health officials to change the name of "Swine Flu" to "Mexican Flu," since Mexico is where the new flu strange allegedly originated because pigs are offensive to both Jews and Muslims.

Really? Really?

I'm not incredulous about the offensive nature of pork in either religion. I understand the nature of that offense. I'm just saying I find it hard to believe that a disease named after a forbidden (for some people) food source is offensive because of that name.

I'd find it offensive if it was called Christian Flu, or Muslim Flu, or Jew Flu, or Really Good Looking Black Man Flu. But Swine Flu? How's that religiously offensive?

Seriously, with all the people freaking out over this flu, does it really matter what we call it? Pig flu, dog, flu, cat flu - catching it or fearing it is not gonna make anyone abandon his faith.

What's good for the goose King is good for the gander Hannity

I catch lots of grief from some of you for "picking on" Larry King over what I perceive to be softball interviews he often does with celebrity types.

There was the Paris Hilton interview, on which King let her giggle away questions about her alleged drug use and never asked her to explain being caught on tape calling people ni**ers.

You know what? I'm going to stop there, lest I get accused of picking on Mr. King again. 'Cause I am not a basher of moderate-to-liberal TV hosts anymore than I'm a basher of conservative TV hosts.

In fact, I'm pretty damned fair and balanced! So I have to call out Sean Hannity for conducting an interview with celebutante Kim Kardashian on one of his Fox News Channel shows the other night, and lauding her for being a role model to some girls.

That's right, role model. In case you were wondering, this is indeed the same Kim Kardashian who made a sex tape two years ago that was later marketed and sold for seven figures.

Now, I'm not a prude. I don't follow her career closely. But I think Kim Kardashian's pretty. Not as pretty as Mrs. B, but pretty. Still, last I checked, getting buck nekkid on camera and doing the horizontal mambo is not the stuff of role models to young girls.

The funny thing is Hannity said this to Kardashian about her  bio: "I want to ask you. Why Playboy? That's the only thing I didn't understand. That didn't make sense. And I know you went through that in the first year of your show."

So the "only" thing that didn't make sense was her posing for Playboy? Really? Not the sex tape?

Note to Hannity: Demote the segment producer who failed to inform you (or remind you) of the tape...assuming you didn't already know.

What!?!?! Hey, if Larry can take it, Sean should be able to also!

Gotta run. BTW, credit goes to Gawker for the idea for this post.

And don't forget to follow me at http://twitter.com/jamesburnett

A bird in the hand and random stuff

What's crackin', friends.

No blogging for the past week - but then you know this, if you've been visiting Burnettiquette - 'cause it's been a roller coaster of wacky stuff that I'll share with you another time.

In the mean time I've been swamped chasing and writing stories and keeping house: On Friday it was the story of a local minister and school headmaster who pleaded guilty to stalking a teenage girl in another state.

Over the weekend, it was running into the backyard 'cause I heard Mrs. B frantically shooing the dog away from something. When I got outside she showed me two baby Morning Doves shivering at the foot of a palm tree. They had fallen from their nest, which was dangling by a thread from a broken palm frond and literally unraveling.

Naturally, Mrs. B demanded I do something. But since my bird-whispering is a little rusty I wasn't sure what to do. Five minutes later though, Mrs. B had someone in nearby forrestry station on the phone, and that person told her to build a makeshift nest and put the birds back in the tree, and if we did that quickly enough the mother would come back to them. This totally crushed the myth I'd learned in Cub Scouts that if you picked up a fallen baby bird, the mom would abandon it 'cause it had human "scent" on it.

Anyway, Mrs. B gathered the nest and some other twigs and dried grass and so on and put them all in a little cardboard box. I grabbed the extension ladder, carried the box to the top of the tree and strapped it around the trunk and secured it on top of a little branch of berries. And then she handed each of the birds up to me.

Sure enough, within a couple of hours the mom returned. And she's been nursing the babies ever since. Very cool to see that happy ending. It won't win me any builder's awards. But I'm pretty damned proud of that cardboard bird's nest...that will probably get soggy just as soon as it rains again. Hope those birds learn to fly soon. Rainy season is about to start.

Today, it's wrapping up an article that will introduce a new historical series we're about to launch in the Miami Herald and on MiamiHerald.com.

Tomorrow, it'll be planning for a weekend of interviewing, filming, and sparring with former WBO heavyweight boxing champ Shannon Briggs, who is training for his comeback fight and itching to share the humbling life lessons - ups and downs - that he's learned in and out of the ring. That's right. I said sparring. And I have no intention of getting knocked out. I'll run before I let that happen.

Speaking of, I have to run now.

Till next time.

PS: Follow me at http://twitter.com/jamesburnett.

Do something nice for a teacher

One of those weeks. Been swamped, folks. But if you have time, adopt a classroom.

The definition(s) of frugality

Here is an project I had in Sunday's paper about three families that aren't rich but are doing well in this down economy. Check out the individual stories and related content.

Miss California, Perez Hilton, Gay Marriage & Honesty

If you were one of the 295 million Americans who did not watch the Miss USA Pageant on NBC Sunday night, then you missed a sparkler of an incident that has since been blown up to a full fireworks show.

Celebrity-gossip blogger Perez Hilton, a pageant judge, was tasked with asking a question of one of the five finalists. He drew Carrie Prejean, Miss California.

Hilton's question was "Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit? Why or why not?

Prejean's answer was "I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage and, you know what, in my country and my family I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anyone out there but that's how I was raised and that's how I think it should be between a man and a woman."

Hilton was clearly disappointed in Prejean's answer. Some members of the audience even booed (shame on them). And Prejean ultimately was runner up to Miss North Carolina who won the pageant.

Later Hilton referred to Prejean as "a dumb bitch" for her answer and said that had she won the Miss USA title he'd have stormed the stage and ripped the tiara from her head.

I'm gonna say this several times, so pay attention: This spat is not about gay marriage or any other civil rights debate.

In a softball interview with Larry King tonight, Hilton insisted he had no regrets, insisted that Prejean's was the dumbest answer in pageant history, insisted that Prejean's answer was the wrong answer, insisted that he didn't want Prejean's opinion but rather the answer a representative of all Americans would have given, and tried to spin the controversy into a referendum on gay marriage and civil rights.

News Flash: Several News Flashes:

• When you ask someone an opinion, there is no right or wrong answer to the question. Unless you ask the question with pre-conditions on the answer then you risk receiving an answer that you might not like.
• Miss California did absolutely nothing wrong. She gave an honest answer to a straight-forward question. Whether her answer was popular or not is a different issue altogether.
• Hilton told Larry King how he would have answered the question. But Hilton wasn't a Miss USA contestant, so how he would have answered the question doesn't matter.

Again, this isn't about gay marriage rights. Beneath the hype the reaction to Prejean's answer by Hilton and the numbnuts in the audience who booed her is the latest example of dishonesty by some folks who say they want an open dialogue with people who are different than them.

Hilton's logic to Larry King was that Miss USA represents the whole USA and that Prejean's answer made it clear she wouldn't have represented gay people if she'd won. The Miss USA Pageant is a for profit business. So had she won, Prejean would have been representing the entity paying her bills: the pageant.

Hilton's logic in this case makes him no different from the yahoos who insist that Barack Obama isn't their president because they didn't vote for him. Al Gore supporters said the same about George Bush. But I digress.

One more time: this Miss USA mess is not about gay marriage.

It's about being able to swallow the fact that sometimes no matter how strongly you feel about something, some folks just are not going to agree with you.

But let's not think this sort of passive aggressiveness is limited to debates about sexual orientation. I've seen people on all sides of race relations debates say they want to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk...until the person they're listening to offers an opinion different than their own. Then they want to flip out.

Same goes for "national conversations" about religion, abortion, and capital punishment, to name a few topics.

After Hilton's harsh words for Miss California, who uttered not one negative word to or about him or gay people in general, he later apologized for calling her "a dumb bitch," explaining that he was so angry 'cause he felt she was so wrong...for having her opinion. He also invited her to coffee, presumably to explain to Prejean the error of her ways.

If you want something advocate for it. Make a case. You're either gonna convince the majority and/or the authorities, or you're not.

In the meantime, it's been my experience that the best way to convince someone that your opinion counts more than theirs is not to call them "a dumb bitch." If I ask a stranger if he approves of me being ebony and Mrs. B being ivory and he answers "no," I can't get mad at the answer. I can get angry over my belief that the stranger is closed-minded. But calling him a Nazi or something and berating him for being stupid pretty much guarantees that he will never hear me out and will never give consideration to my opinion.

So let this be a lesson: don't ask questions of strangers if you've already made up your mind what their answer should be.

That's not to say that you can't try to persuade those strangers that you're right and they're wrong. But that's another post on another day. For now, let's turn this "national conversation" into a real multi-directional chat, and not a pout fest.

Oh, and the real dumbest pageant answer ever? A tie between the following:

• Miss Arizona's response Sunday night to being asked if universal healthcare should be a right of citizenship in the U.S. - "I think this is an issue of integrity, regardless of which end of the political spectrum I stand on. I've been raised in a family to know right from wrong, and politics, whether or not you fall in the middle, the left, or the right, it's an issue of integrity - whatever your opinion is. And I say that with the utmost conviction."
• and Miss Teen South Carolina 2007's response to being asked why she thought a fifth of Americans couldn't locate the U.S. on a map - "I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so… because… uh…some … people out there in our nation don’t have maps and…. uh, I believe that our, ah, education like such as… in South Africa, and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like…such as… and I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., or should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries… so we will be able to build up our future…for our children.”

BTW, follow me at http://twitter.com/jamesburnett. 

State of Play: Worthy Newspaper Film

I have always had a love/hate relationship with newspaper movies.

And by "always" I mean the 15 years since I decided I wanted to be in the news biz and started paying attention to how it was portrayed...by practitioners and by Hollywood.

His Girl Friday? Great movie. Well acted and funny as hell.

Absence of Malice? Brilliant in how it gives the reporter a sense of humanity as she struggles with the ethics of getting too close to a story subject.

The Paper? Funny, but heroic, about a newspaper editor struggling to decide whether to stay at his gritty tabloid or take a job with the more prestigious paper across town.

All the President's Men? C'mon.

I could go on with the good ones. But then there's stuff like Never Been Kissed, starring Drew Barrymore as a school-marmish copy editor with her own office and personal assistant.

Trust me when I tell you that on the planet Earth, the only non-management copy editors with their own offices and personal assistants are those whose parents own the newspaper where they work.

And then there's I Love Trouble. I thought the chemistry between Nick Nolte, a star columnist for a Chicago paper, and Julia Roberts, a reporter for a rival paper, was great. But the newsroom scenes, the jargon, etc., was all really over the top.

So when I was asked to attend a screening of State of Play, a new film about a star reporter (Russell Crowe), a congressman (Ben Affleck), a bunch of murders, several parallel investigations, etc., I was initially reluctant. How good could a film about newspapers be, when the guy playing the star reporter sometimes seems to hate reporters in real life?

But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The plot was good, the twists kept me focused on the film. And Russell Crowe played a good reporter.

And much of the newsroom chatter was reasonably accurate. At one point during the screening I whispered to the old guy next to me "We don't talk like that in newsrooms." He leaned toward me and replied "Son, I may have retired from the news business before you born. But yes we do!"

There were a few scenes that made me cringe and say no way that would happen at a real paper. Helen Mirren was a little over the top in her portrayal of the fictional Washington Globe's executive editor, and Rachel McAdams played the young, smug blogger to perfection. But overall the film was good. I wrote Tuesday night after seeing State of Play that one day after it grows on me, I might even consider it All the King's Men 2.0, or at least a very good effort.

That's all I'll say about State of Play, 'cause I don't want to step on the toes of one of the Miami Herald's very capable film critics who reviewed the movie.

I will say I find it ironic though, that my efforts to interview State of Play screenwriters Matthew Michael Carnahan and Tony Gilroy were welcomed but later rebuffed because someone among the several layers of publicists for Universal Pictures didn't think either man had time to participate in yet another...newspaper article.

A parting question: Are newspapers being featured prominently in film these days (State of Play, The Soloist) because Hollywood thinks consumers are interested in seeing dramatizations of fading glory, or are they being featured as curiosities, hip relics - sort of the way classic car enthusiasts show off their 50-year-old rides and rock stars strut in their 20-year-old thrift-store-bought clothes?

BTW, follow me at http://twitter.com/jamesburnett.

Pres. Obama, Mexico, Border Issues

Driving to work 30 minutes ago I was listening to an NPR report on Pres. Obama's upcoming visit to Mexico.

The report included comments from Mexican citizens about Obama and what they felt his responsibilities are , regarding both countries' wars on the illegal drug trade, poverty, border security, etc.

Now, I'm a pretty damned sympathetic guy to people trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents.

But the tone of the comments struck me as misdirected. One man who said he lives in a hovel said he wanted Obama, like JFK before him, to visit shanty towns in Mexico so the U.S. president could get a close view of Mexican poverty and plan appropriately to do something about it.

Shouldn't that comment have been aimed at Mexican Pres. Felipe Calderon?

Another man quoted in  the story referred to "dumb Americans" and said something to the effect that he hoped Obama would demonstrate that he wasn't one of them by treating Mexico like a neighbor and not a problem.

Yet, another man who said many friends and neighbors had slipped across the U.S. border for work, said he hoped Obama understood that these people were slipping into the U.S. for money to take home, because there were no jobs for them back home. He added that he hoped Obama might do something about the lack of working class jobs in much of Mexico.

Again, shouldn't he have been aiming that wishlist at Pres. Calderon?

Sorry, I'm not a political analyst. But I am a pretty good journalist if I do say so myself, and I think the interviewer should have asked follow-ups to these commenters. These aren't black and white, simple issues, I know. The U.S. gives foreign aid. I get it. It's part of diplomacy. I understand.

I'm just saying if someone I interviewed blamed his trouble on his next door neighbor, I'd ask him to be more specific and explain why his neighbor and not he is responsible for his troubles.

If a Canadian news outlet quoted Americans, like residents of the fictional South Park, Colorado, saying "blame Canada!" RE America's domestic problems and lack of jobs, and the Canadian interviewer did not challenge the Americans quoted to justify their arguments, Canadian news consumers would go nuts.

Just sayin'.

Hulk Hogan, OJ Simpson

Once again, you can't make this stuff up.

Pro wrestler Hulk Hogan said in the latest issue of Rolling Stone that he understood why O.J. Simpson (may have) killed his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.

I say "may have," 'cause I'm not trying to get sued.

Anyway, Hogan, apparently ticked off that his ex-wife Linda, who's pushing 50, gets to live in their multi-million dollar mansion and that her boyfriend, who's 19 or 20, drives around town in luxury cars that Hogan paid for, said he understood how O.J. could develop enough rage to kill in similar circumstances.

Of course, Hogan was roundly condemned by pundits, and Linda's "team" pointed to Hogan's comments as evidence that she has reason to fear him.

My first thought was Hulk Hogan must be nuts. Even if he was thinking this, he shouldn't have said it aloud to another human.

My second thought was Hulk Hogan sounds serious, like he could really kill her!

My third thought was Wait a minute! I remember when Chris Rock said something similar during his 1996 HBO special Bring the Pain. And I laughed my behind off at Rock's joke.

Not only that, but I have since watched Bring the Pain a dozen times, and I admit I've laughed every time, all the way through. The first time I watched it, I watched with my then girlfriend. She laughed too...and then punched me in the arm for laughing so hard.

In Bring the Pain, Rock came right out and told his audience that he knew damned well O.J. did it. He then went on to talk about Simpson paying his ex $25,000 a month in support, about reports that Goldman was often spotted around town driving luxury cars that Simpson paid for but his ex possessed, and about rumors that Brown-Simpson and Goldman may have been dating. To raucus laughter, Rock concluded "I'm not sayin' he should've killed her...but I understand." (Here is the first four minutes of audio from that bit. CAUTION: salty language!)

Terrible, right? No one deserves to be murdered. Period.

So why was I repulsed by Hulk Hogan's words and amused by Rock's?

I'm not asking 'cause I think domestic violence or murder or any combination of those crimes is funny. Just the opposite. I know they're among the worst crimes, right up there with child abuse, rape, etc.

And I'm no shrink (though I like to play one in print), but I think the difference between the two is Hogan's tone in Rolling Stone came off as disturbed, whereas Chris Rock compelled folks to squirm uncomfortably as they laughed, 'cause they knew that what he was saying had crossed the minds of lots of "normal" non-violent people.

Don't get mad. You know I'm telling the truth. Tell me you don't have at least one friend who over drinks or on the golf course or in the gym didn't say something similary nutty like "I don't know, man. I think I'd be pretty ticked off too if I had to pay...and she shared it with another guy."

I've had friends and acquaintances do that. And I'll be honest, my reaction has ranged from a silent frown, to a finger-wagging condemnation, to an uncomfortable giggle.

Personally? I don't think money, houses, or cars are worth killing someone over. The way I see it, if I'm rich and half my wealth is the price for a smooth split from a former love, so be it. Of course, as Rock said in Bring the Pain, a 50% split may not mean much to you when you're splitting $20 million. But it might take on a whole new meaning when your "wealth" to begin with was say $30,000, and your departing spouse is entitled to $15,000 of that.

I know one guy who was so obsessed with worry over the sharing half scenario that he swore he'd never get married. Ironically, that moron wasn't rich and nothing about the way he lived suggested he'd ever be. So his fear of "losing half" was without merit.

And I know guys who swear if the roles were reversed and their wives earned more money, they - the guys - wouldn't seek half in a divorce. They'd just walk away and start their lives over. Baloney. They would too seek half.

So there is this lingering resentment mentality among lots of guys that makes them rebel against the notion of sharing material wealth with a former love - so much so sometimes that it can lead to scenarios like what most of us are convinced happened with O.J. and Nicole.

Hulk Hogan clearly has this mentality. Hope he gets help and doesn't snap. But if he does snap, we know it won't be the first or last time that kind of tragedy happens.

Final food for thought: Assuming I"m right in speculating that I'm not the only anti-kill-your-wife man who laughed at Chris Rock's O.J. bit back in the day, should we really have been shocked a few weeks ago when nearly 50% of teenage girls surveyed about the Chris Brown/Rihanna domestic violence case speculated that Rihanna brought that beating on herself?

Just askin'.

BTW, follow me at http://twitter.com/jamesburnett.

Journalistic Dilemma

OK, this is one of those "what would you do, and why?" scenarios.

My hometown newspaper, The Virginian-Pilot, has a short article online today about the death of a man who used to be the general manager of the dominant local TV station.

By all accounts Mario Hewitt was a nice guy and well liked at WVEC-TV, Hampton Roads, Virginia's ABC affliate, the station he managed.

Hewitt died of cancer recently in Houston, where he'd moved in the late 1990s after resigning his job at WVEC.

The short story in the Pilot identifies Hewitt, quotes former colleagues saying he was a great guy, mentions his resignation back in the day....and mentions that while he cited "personal reasons" for resigning, he had been charged with DUI two weeks prior to resigning.

A reader commenting on the story scolded the Pilot and said they should have left out the DUI part and that the story would have still been "truthful" without it.

Since the day I started reporting full-time 12 years ago - almost 13 - readers have asked me: "Why did you leave such-and-such out of your article?" or "Why did you include this?"

In a blog post a few days ago, I used as an example a story about an article I wrote last fall, in which I mentioned that a neighborhood hotel had been visited by police more than 300 times last year.

One blog friend who commented on that post expressed sadness for the hotel owner whom my blog friend apparently believed had succumbed to the economy and was struggling to maintain the place.

But the truth is the hotel owner didn't succumb to the economy. The hotel has been overrun by prostitutes and Johns and drug dealers and abusers for upwards of 10 years. And the owner? She still lives in luxury in a wealthy community less than 10 miles aways and has rebuffed repeated police efforts to force her to clean the place up.

My point in explaining the hotel story further is there was no way for my blog friend to know there was more to the story than simply a failing hotel, if I didn't include it. There's always a back story, always something else that could be added to explain a scenario, or that could be left out.

When it comes to writing about people's deaths, I confess I used to be the biggest chicken, always that person who only reluctantly included details of the dead person's past indiscretions - unless, of course, those indiscretions define that person. If John Doe is a nice but plain guy his whole life, a devout church deacon, until at age 50 he decides to become a porn star or he decides to convert to Satanism and begin biting the heads off of goats, trust me. I'm gonna include that goat biting or porno in John Doe's obit. And if his friends and neighbors don't like it, they're gonna have to deal. Biting goats and doing porn may not be crimes, but when they're out of character for a person they become memorable.

 The other exception, of course, is when you're writing about a dead person who committed a terrible crime or multiple crimes. You have to include that stuff.

When I first started reporting, I had an editor who would read every obit I wrote - fortunately, I only had to write a few before moving on to writing mostly about living people and people who died as crime victims, not from natural causes -  and would ask "So what, this person was perfect?"

Then we'd do a dance in which I'd groan about feeling awkward about writing ill of the dead. And he'd parry my steps by arguing that if what good we do helps define us, then what bad we do helps define us too....even if it's one-time bad or just a smidgen of bad.

Eventually, he convinced me and I stopped fighting it. But to this day I still get that question: Why did you have to include that in your story?

You tell me. Don't tell me what you'd do if you were a journalist. Tell me what you think as a reader. Include the deceased gentleman's DUI, or leave it out? Why?