America's blockhead

They don't make newspaper columnists like Jimmy Breslin anymore, and we're all the poorer for it. From a column purportedly about Mitt Romney is this gem about Rudolph Giuliani:

I today direct you to how religion overwhelmed this Giuliani, who always has been a little man in search of a balcony. Each time he inspected a height he stood there and rehearsed for the moment when the whole nation would look at him in fear and awe. Then he paused to scowl at the West Side of Manhattan, with its grubby liberals who say that he was the worst mayor we've had. Then came the attack on the World Trade Center and Giuliani ran right up the street from the smoke and into a television studio. There he remained for day after day until the cameras made him America's Mayor.

I mean, you could read the I-can't-believe-there-are-still-trees-left New Yorker profile (in 16 parts) or professional Rudy-hater Wayne Barrett's Village Voice job (or not read Harper's take).

But really, Breslin's sketch of him atop a balcony really captures it all; the arrogance, the righteousness, the terrible isolation, the fascism, the evocation of Mussolini and (Eva) Peron, the stature--even the Italianness.

Uncredited photo of Giuliani in various places online.

Unarmed opponent

Buried in the middle of Paul Gigot's WSJ column that broke the news that Karl Rove is resigning is this:

The president calls him to chat about politics on Sunday mornings, and they have a contest to see who can read the most books. (Mr. Rove is winning.)

Why Republicans will choose a Hispanic for VP

Come next September in Minneapolis, the Republicans should nominate a Hispanic candidate for vice president.

A Hispanic nominee totally changes the dynamic of the election. It'd give the GOP a shot at capturing the fastest-growing bloc of voters, lets voters make history by voting Republican, blows up the electoral map, and allows the traditional black/Latino fault line to tear Democrats apart from within.

A Hispanic is the only person who can fulfill the VP nominee's traditional job of attack dog against the other party's presidential candidate without coming across as racist (if it's Barack Obama) or a bully (if it's Hillary Clinton).

A Hispanic gives minorities a credible reason to not vote Democratic without feeling like traitors or bigots or sexists.

A Hispanic is the only way the Republicans can dodge the growing feeling that they're yesterday's party, top-heavy with tired white males.

A Hispanic ties 15% of the population to the Republicans, via an ethnic pride/emotional/historic appeal that cannot be underestimated.

A Hispanic demolishes the electoral map--it locks up Texas for the GOP, solidifies their hold on Florida, shores up their razor-thin margins in Arizona and New Mexico, forces Democrats to put more resources into the expensive New York and Illinois media markets, and--in combination with Schwarzenegger--actually puts California into play.

A Hispanic in the second spot gives cover for the Republicans to play their favorite wedge issue, immigration, following the George Bush/Karl Rove playbook.

There are only two reasons the GOP wouldn't nominate a Hispanic: The prejudices of their own core voters, and the lack of a credible Hispanic Republican candidate (Mel Martinez is the only one in the ballpark).

I guess it's apt that the only thing preventing the Republicans from seizing control of the 2008 race could be themselves.

When not winning is losing

In sports there's the concept of a team being behind in the game, but actually being ahead.

Like let's say in football, you turn the ball over 4 times deep in your own territory in the first half, but the other team is only up 10-0 on the scoreboard.

Really, you should be losing like 21-0, so the halftime speech from the coach goes something like they've taken their best shot at us and this is all they can do--this game is ours to win.

You'd be surprised at how often the team that's 'down' winds up winning the game in situations like that; you've got to make the most of your chances in sports, and when you don't the other team usually does.

The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll from Iowa has Barack Obama at 27%, Hillary Clinton at 26%, and Johh Edwards at 26%.

I'm shocked. Edwards has practically lived in Iowa the last four years; the state gave him a surprisingly strong second place finish the last time out, and his entire strategy this time around is built around winning Iowa so he's devoted the bulk of his resources to the state.

Clinton's also been running for president for the past four years, has poured money and staff into Iowa, is married to someone who's enormously popular in the state, and has picked up the endorsements of most of Iowa's political heavyweights.

And yet they're both not only not up on Obama, but are actually trailing a man whose only advantage in Iowa is his ads in the Illionois Senate race leaked over the border.

I mean, if four years of concentrated work by Edwards and Clinton in a state that's 94% white can't even give them a lead over someone who's basically just shown up, my gosh, where are they gonna beat him once voters get to know him?

Polls are generally pretty soft this far out--the article notes:

History suggests that these voters are quite willing to change their mind as caucus day approaches and the campaign intensifies with television advertising and more direct engagement among the candidates. In the 2004 Iowa caucus day poll by the National Election Pool, 42 percent of caucus-goers said they made up their mind in the last week of the campaign. Just 30 percent made their final decision more than a month before caucus day.

However, this year is pretty different--the race has started earlier than ever before, and the people polled in Iowa are paying attention:

Americans elsewhere may not be paying attention to the presidential race on a day-to-day basis, but nine in 10 likely Democratic caucus attendees said they are closely following the movements and statements of the candidates. Seven in 10 said they have been contacted by at least one of the presidential campaigns this year, and four in 10 said they have attended at least one campaign event. ...

The poll provides stark evidence of how intense the early campaigning has been. The 71 percent of voters who have already received a telephone call from one of the campaigns is about equal to the percentage of likely caucus-goers who reported getting called in December 2003, the month before the 2004 caucuses.

The portion having already attended one or more campaign events, 40 percent, is up somewhat from that time, and the percentage donating money to one of the candidates is about as high. A third of likely voters have already received e-mails from a campaign, and a third have visited a candidate's Web site.

I don't know; the Iowa caucuses are one of the weirdest things in politics, it's pretty amazing that one of the key events in how a nation of 300 million people chooses the next leader of the free world centers around a few thousand people getting together in living rooms and arguing.

And the people responding to the poll may not be at all the people who are gonna spend hours taking part in the caucus next winter. Plus there's the complicating factor of the built-in bias against black candidates by white voters, vying with the 'Bradley effect' where black candidates generally do about 10 points worse on election day than polls show (a combination of bigots lying to pollsters, and last-minute undecideds often breaking for the default choice).

Nevertheless, this poll result from a state with voters who are paying the most attention in the nation, along with Obama's ability to outraise Hillary, along with the size of crowds he's drawing everywhere, along with the people he's managed to get to run his campaign, are all pretty telling that this game is gonna play out differently.

Scott Morgan photo of Obama from Getty Images via USA Today.

Midseason form

Gilbert Arenas is the king of all blogging. Mark Cuban needs to start taking lessons from him.

There Are No Such Thing as Shark Attacks

I know this is random, but I just want to clear this up for people out there.
There are these things called shark attacks, but there is no such thing as a shark attack. I have never seen a real shark attack.

I know you’re making a weird face as you’re reading this. OK people, a shark attack is not what we see on TV and what people portray it as.

We’re humans. We live on land.

Sharks live in water.

So if you’re swimming in the water and a shark bites you, that’s called trespassing. That is called trespassing. That is not a shark attack.

A shark attack is if you’re chilling at home, sitting on your couch, and a shark comes in and bites you; now that’s a shark attack. Now, if you’re chilling in the water, that is called invasion of space. So I have never heard of a shark attack.

When I see on the news where it’s like, “There have been 10 shark attacks,” I’m like, “Hey, for real?! They’re just running around? Sharks are walking now, huh! We live on the land, we don’t live underwater.”

And, from an earlier post:

I know I said was was afraid of the stingrays and sharks, but I actually got into the water with sharks on my vacation. I was swimming every morning with them. They were little 3-foot long sharks called blackheads. The locals said nobody has ever been bitten by a shark, there haven’t been any shark attacks, you know they’re not aggressive sharks.

So I was like, “All right, let me go in and give it a try.” But that was after I’d seen little kids in there swimming already, then I knew I could go in. I wasn’t going to be the first one in, that’s for sure.

More of my Gilbert posts here (although really, his posts are much more entertaining).

Uncredited image of Arenas from Detroit Bad Boys blog, who got it from who knows where.

Stripping Hillary

So the Times has gotten ahold of some letters Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote to a friend while she was in college, and set Mark Leibovich to analyze them.

It's an exceedingly odd and cringe-inducing article--there's no awareness of how weird it is to parse the words of a college freshman, no sense of embarassment, no acknowledgement of invading her privacy (it's her letters, made public by the person she wrote to), no caveats--just straight-forward literary analysis, as if they were going over the text of her latest stump speech.

Which, come to think of it, I've never seen the Times do.

More than anything it's pathetic; there are insights in there, much like any biography would benefit from such primary source material--but the difference is the letters section would be placed in context within a long biography, whereas here we have a front page Times article making much out of her scribblings 40 years ago.

If they're going to go that route, they need to analyze the friend Hillary sent the letters to, what he was like, what the nature of their friendship was (reading between the lines he seemed to like her more than a friend, she not at all). These weren't meant for public consumption, so whatever peek of intimacy the Times gleans from them should be offset by an understanding that they were tailored words.

But none of that's there; the words are quoted at face value, as if they speak for themselves.

I conclude the guy Hillary wrote to was a bit of a prat--there's no acknowledgement by him or the Times that what he's doing, in releasing her side of a two-way conversation, isn't right.

He's even quoted as saying:

Mr. Peavoy’s letters to Ms. Rodham are lost to posterity, unless she happened to keep them, which he doubts. He said he wished he had kept copies himself. “They are windows into a time and a place and a journey of self-discovery,” he said in an interview. “This was what college students did before Facebook.”

Oh yes, what a loss that we weren't able to read your words too, John Peavoy.

At least wait until she's dead; apparently he missed the day at school where they taught manners and how to be a gentleman.

And thank you for placing this within a wider cultural context--of course that's why you made the letters available and the Times printed them, it's almost your duty in this Facebook age to remind us all of that archaic form of communication you used to utilize.

If you wind up reading the article, you're struck by how the Times tries to torture conclusions out of her words; it's quite sad, actually--and of course, Clinton comes across all the better for it.

This is why a lot of good and qualified people refuse to run for office; who wants stuff like this considered fair game?

There's gotta be room for people to form themselves without thinking it could all be dredged up years later--and in this particular case, the Times should really question dealing with the kind of person who lets you read another person's private letters without their consent.

The Times may argue it's an unvarnished, unspun look into the life of a famously tightly-controlled politician.

Odd; that's what the tabloids say about their ambush snapshots of celebrities.

Era photo of Hillary Rodham from a fan site.

Fallen giant

There's a lengthy, interesting interview with Alexander Solzhenitsyn (yes, he's still alive!) in Der Spiegel; reading it--a German publication talking to a Russian about totalitarianism and its enduring stain--made me think how truly foreign the experiences of a Europe that grew up either directly under or in the shadow of first Nazism and then Communism can be to us.

His political views aren't what I expected, based on what I remember from reading the Gulag Archipelago and what I'd assume the leading anti-Communist dissident (along with Natan Sharansky) would think about post-Communist Russia.

His take on Vladimir Putin was particularly surprising:

Vladimir Putin -- yes, he was an officer of the intelligence services, but he was not a KGB investigator, nor was he the head of a camp in the gulag. As for service in foreign intelligence, that is not a negative in any country -- sometimes it even draws praise. George Bush Sr. was not much criticized for being the ex-head of the CIA, for example. ...

SPIEGEL: How do you assess the period of Putin's governance in comparison with his predecessors Yeltsin and Gorbachev?

Solzhenitsyn: Gorbachev's administration was amazingly politically naïve, inexperienced and irresponsible towards the country. It was not governance but a thoughtless renunciation of power. The admiration of the West in return only strengthened his conviction that his approach was right. But let us be clear that it was Gorbachev, and not Yeltsin, as is now widely being claimed, who first gave freedom of speech and movement to the citizens of our country.

Yeltsin's period was characterized by a no less irresponsible attitude to people's lives, but in other ways. In his haste to have private rather than state ownership as quickly as possible, Yeltsin started a mass, multi-billion-dollar fire sale of the national patrimony. Wanting to gain the support of regional leaders, Yeltsin called directly for separatism and passed laws that encouraged and empowered the collapse of the Russian state. This, of course, deprived Russia of its historical role for which it had worked so hard, and lowered its standing in the international community. All this met with even more hearty Western applause.

Putin inherited a ransacked and bewildered country, with a poor and demoralized people. And he started to do what was possible -- a slow and gradual restoration. These efforts were not noticed, nor appreciated, immediately. In any case, one is hard pressed to find examples in history when steps by one country to restore its strength were met favorably by other governments.

He's nuts! Gorbachev didn't renounce power--he renounced a sham by which the USSR, by starving its people via a permanent war-time footing, put forth the ultimate Potemkin village for seven decades.

It was a farce that could not last in the Information Age, that managed to hang on only when the state had a shot at controlling all lies and truths.

And Putin hasn't revived anything--it's been the monstrous jump in the price of oil that's dragged the Russian economy back from collapse; all Putin's done is set up a cult of personality dictatorship under the guise of nationalism.

I guess what we forget is that Solzhenitsyn was so anti-Communist in part because they enslaved what he saw as the greatest of all nations, of all people. For him, Russia's natural place is in front, which to me is ridiculous.

Aside from the steroid-like 'power' that the Communists projected, Russia after the devastating Mongol invasions of the 13th century has always been at least decades behind the West. Their tiny intellectual class has been fiercely productive, but the vast majority of the country has always been a brutish wasteland.

Look at the astonishing rates of alcoholism in Russia; and how it's about the only industrialized country that's suffered a decrease in life expectancy, currently standing at 59 years for males and 72 years for females.

That, and a startling decline in its birth rate (forcing the government to try bribing women to have kids), adds up to a place that, if you took away their nuclear weapons, would be the definition of a Third World country.

But Solzhenitsyn being so Russian there is also this:

SPIEGEL: Your recent two-volume work "200 Years Together" was an attempt to overcome a taboo against discussing the common history of Russians and Jews. These two volumes have provoked mainly perplexity in the West. You say the Jews are the leading force of global capital and they are among the foremost destroyers of the bourgeoisie. Are we to conclude from your rich array of sources that the Jews carry more responsibility than others for the failed Soviet experiment?

Solzhenitsyn: I avoid exactly that which your question implies: I do not call for any sort of scorekeeping or comparisons between the moral responsibility of one people or another; moreover, I completely exclude the notion of responsibility of one nation towards another. All I am calling for is self-reflection.

You can get the answer to your question from the book itself: "Every people must answer morally for all of its past -- including that past which is shameful. Answer by what means? By attempting to comprehend: How could such a thing have been allowed? Where in all this is our error? And could it happen again? It is in that spirit, specifically, that it would behoove the Jewish people to answer, both for the revolutionary cutthroats and the ranks willing to serve them. Not to answer before other peoples, but to oneself, to one's consciousness, and before God. Just as we Russians must answer -- for the pogroms, for those merciless arsonist peasants, for those crazed revolutionary soldiers, for those savage sailors."

And then, there's this example of myopia:

SPIEGEL: But Russia often finds itself alone. Recently relations between Russia and the West have gotten somewhat colder (more...), and this includes Russian-European relations. What is the reason? What are the West's difficulties in understanding modern Russia?

Solzhenitsyn: I can name many reasons, but the most interesting ones are psychological, i.e. the clash of illusory hopes against reality. This happened both in Russia and in West. When I returned to Russia in 1994, the Western world and its states were practically being worshipped. Admittedly, this was caused not so much by real knowledge or a conscious choice, but by the natural disgust with the Bolshevik regime and its anti-Western propaganda.

This mood started changing with the cruel NATO bombings of Serbia. It's fair to say that all layers of Russian society were deeply and indelibly shocked by those bombings. The situation then became worse when NATO started to spread its influence and draw the ex-Soviet republics into its structure. This was especially painful in the case of Ukraine, a country whose closeness to Russia is defined by literally millions of family ties among our peoples, relatives living on different sides of the national border. At one fell stroke, these families could be torn apart by a new dividing line, the border of a military bloc.

So, the perception of the West as mostly a "knight of democracy" has been replaced with the disappointed belief that pragmatism, often cynical and selfish, lies at the core of Western policies. For many Russians it was a grave disillusion, a crushing of ideals.

At the same time the West was enjoying its victory after the exhausting Cold War, and observing the 15-year-long anarchy under Gorbachev and Yeltsin. In this context it was easy to get accustomed to the idea that Russia had become almost a Third World country and would remain so forever. When Russia started to regain some of its strength as an economy and as a state, the West's reaction -- perhaps a subconscious one, based on erstwhile fears -- was panic.

Anyone who calls the bombing of Serbia--a last-ditch and successful effort to stop ethnic cleansing via the slaughter of civilians by Slobodan Milosovic and his ilk--"cruel" is living in a fantasy world borne of some pretty deep-seated prejudices, perpetuated by delusions of grandeur and the daily slap of shame from reality.

That's really the legacy of the Communists--via the shortcut of five-year plans built on the hidden muscle of slave labor camps, they perpetuated a psychological fraud on the Russian people in making them think they had caught up with the West and could take their "rightful" place.

But what they've left behind is a deluded populace that not only can't catch up to Europe--but is in the process of being passed by Asia.

Which more than anything lends a sense of sadness to Solzhenitsyn's archaic beliefs, anchored in the false memories that Communism must have instilled even as he fought it:

But did not Russia clearly and unambiguously stretch its helping hand to the West after 9/11? Only a psychological shortcoming, or else a disastrous shortsightedness, can explain the West's irrational refusal of this hand. No sooner did the USA accept Russia's critically important aid in Afghanistan than it immediately started making newer and newer demands. As for Europe, its claims towards Russia are fairly transparently based on fears about energy, unjustified fears at that.

Isn't it a luxury for the West to be pushing Russia aside now, especially in the face of new threats? In my last Western interview before I returned to Russia (for Forbes magazine in April 1994) I said: "If we look far into the future, one can see a time in the 21st century when both Europe and the USA will be in dire need of Russia as an ally."

Ah, yes, Russia as an ally against Islamic fundamentalism--why no mention of Chechnya in your interview, Alexander Isayevich?

Friends like that we don't need.

Jurij Filistow photo of Solzhenitsyn in Der Spiegel

Thoughts on finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I think you'd have to go back to the days of Dickens to match the anticipation for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

J.K. Rowling doesn't disappoint. I raced through the book on a beautiful mid-summer New York day, propelled forward by the desire to know but balanced, always, by the acute awareness as each page slipped by that there was that much less Harry Potter, ever, to read.

It's a great read, for any Harry Potter fan. A lot of things come back; many red herrings just float away; for me, the book matched my expectations and was one of the rare finales that didn't fall short.

Rowling must have increasingly felt like Potter himself as she wrote the finale, with all the pressure and huge expectations and legions of critics with their knives all sharpened ready (hoping?) to pounce.

And like him, she's true to who she is, and follows that through to the end, for better or for worse. And, in my mind, pulls it off--without magic, no less.

I was struck by how accurate some of the fan sites had been in their speculation about some important small items; and any close reader (or rereader) of the series will be rewarded with nods 'of course' throughout.

That's one of the great things about Rowling, she's internally and logically consistent; she's not making up things as she goes along, throwing up everything and the kitchen sink to dazzle and distract us--her world has core principles, and even when they call for hard choices she makes them and plays them out to their end.

And so how right--yet totally unexpected--the overall story was. Like the best explanations, that always seem so obvious and singular and elegant in hindsight. Of course it had to end the way it did--it makes sense, in every sense of the word, from plot to Rowling's style to our expectations and beliefs about how life plays out.

Like our fairy tales there's a connection to something that predates all of us, and Rowling follows the rules, even as she finds new ways to illuminate and play with them.

As Michicko Kakutani notes in her oddly once-over review, the story "could be Exhibit A in a Joseph Campbell survey of mythic archetypes."

Maybe that's why it felt so satisfying to close the thick tome.

And yet, of course, because although Rowling is no great shakes as a writer she's an amazing storyteller, finishing the book--the series!--leaves you with a certain emptiness.

I'd never thought I'd see the kind of outward passion for books Harry Potter has kindled; who'd have ever thought thousands of (creatively costumed!) kids and adults would pack a bookstore for the chance to, together, start reading a 759-page book?!

That the city of New York would shut down a city block so people could gather in celebration of a world that gushed from the pen of a former Scottish welfare mother (now certainly a queen)?!

I feel bad for people who haven't been reading the books, who haven't had a chance to experience the solitary wonders of Rowling's creation mixed with the communal passion of Harry Potter's fans, without whom the entire journey wouldn't have been nearly as much fun.

There's a diversity, an innocence, to Potter fans that I've never found in Trekkies and their ilk; maybe because it's so obviously a series for children that happens to stretch to create lots of room for adults, I've seen little of the weird obsessiveness that seems to me to mar other outwardly-similar events. There's plenty of room, for everyone to share their own version of Rowling's world.

It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing, I think; there will be others along these lines, but now that we've experienced it, the next time can only be 'better' at the margins, it can never spark this type of authentic phenomenon, at least not in this genre.

And not, at least, for us--first love being what it is.

I'll leave for another day the parsing of the meaning of it all (the series definitely changed after 9/11, or to be more accurate grew to encompass more of the world as we see it now); the recounting of what was guessed and wasn't, the musings about why Rowling writes the way she does, my subjective list of what made sense and what was muddled.

What a great ride it's been; I'm sad to see it end, but happy for all the pleasures of the journey.

Image of Deathly Hallows cover found everywhere.

King it

There are actually three stories in Kenneth Chang's piece in the Times, Champion at Checkers That Cannot Lose to People.

One the putative subject; another the astonishing human; and third the step closer to humans feeling like second class citizens on our own world.

Oh well; at least we'll always have each other to jump over.

Checkers has been solved.

A computer program named Chinook vanquished its human competitors at tournaments more than a decade ago. But now, in an article published Thursday on the Web site of the journal Science, the scientists at the University of Alberta who developed the program report that they have rigorously proved that Chinook, in a slightly improved version, cannot ever lose. Any opponent, human or computer, no matter how skilled, can at best achieve a draw. ...

The earlier incarnation of Chinook, relying on artificial intelligence techniques and the combined computing power of many computers, placed second in the 1990 United States championship behind Marion Tinsley, the world champion, who had won every tournament he had played in since 1950.

That achievement should have earned Chinook the right to challenge Dr. Tinsley, a professor of mathematics at Florida A&M University, for the world championship, but the American Checkers Federation and the English Draughts Association refused to sanction a match. After much wrangling in the checkers world, Dr. Tinsley and Chinook battled for the man-versus-machine checkers title in 1992.

Dr. Tinsley won, 4 to 2 with 33 draws. Chinook’s two wins were only the sixth and seventh losses for Dr. Tinsley since 1950. In a rematch two years later, Dr. Tinsley withdrew after six draws, citing health reasons. Cancer was diagnosed, and Dr. Tinsley died seven months later. ...

The next game Dr. Schaeffer hopes to conquer is poker, which is harder to solve, because players do not have complete knowledge of their opponents’ positions. Next week, his program, Polaris, will take on two professional poker players in Texas Hold ’Em for the $50,000 man-versus-machine world championship.

Soon, computers may not just be winning games, but taking people’s money, too.

Photo of Tinsley found in various places online.

Blackout redux

It was 30 years ago that New York City was plunged into darkness (again)--and this
time, looters came out before the lights came back out.

It's astonishing how much the city has changed, for the better, since then--much of the period articles almost read more as if they're movie reviews of Escape From New York, Batman or Soylent Green than actual dispatches from the flesh and blood city.

The Times' perpetual reporting machine Sewall Chan has pulled together a nice section looking back at the coverage of the blackout that features some great first-person accounts from users who were there.

Although, oddly, no HTML links to the original Times reporting.

Nevertheless, via the magic of a PDF link in a photo caption, we start with the authoritative Times, and their now-legendary (and still working) spot news man, Robert D. McFadden: Power Failure Blacks Out New York; Thousands Trapped in Subways; Looters and Vandals Hit Some Areas

A power failure plunged New York City and Westchester County into darkness last night, disrupting the lives of nearly nine million people.

Spokesmen for the Consolidated Edison Company said that power for all of its 2.8 million customers would not be restored until late this mornign.

By 2 A.M., the utility had restored power to 150,000 customres in the Jamaica, Flushing, Queens Village and Kew Gardens sections of Queens, and to 50,000 customers in the Pleasantville area in Westchester County.

Thought not as big as the nine-state blackout that hit the Northeast in November 1965, last night's power failure was in some respects an uglier experience. There was widespread looting in Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn, and four hours after the blackout began, the police had arrested nearly 900 people.

Several thousand subway riders were trapped in trains between stations--but nowhere near the masses stranded 12 years ago during the rush hour.

With hindsight, the subhead should've put the Looters part about the subway part, since that's what was different about this blackout.

But a masterpiece of concise, this is what happened and this is what you need to know writing. If the looting seems a little undercovered, it's because they broke that part out into the left margin article, by Lawrence Van Gelder.

The PDF of the front page is worth reading; other pieces cover how people helped their neighbors, explained what exactly happened with the lightning bolt, covered the subways, noted Long Island was fine, and detailed doctors at Bellevue using hand-squeezed air bags to resusciate some patients.

Next, the Daily News' lead article, written by Dick Brass: Blackout! Lighting Hits Con Ed System

A massive power failure plunged New York City and most of Westchester County into darkness in sweltering midsummer weather last night, stranding millions in buildings, disrupting communications, slowing fire-fighting efforts, encouraging looting and evoking grim memories of the great 1965 Northeast power collapse.

A Con Ed spokesman blamed the blackout on severe lightning strikes at about 8:40 p.m. on a 345 kilovolt transmission cable suspended across the Hudson River to the company's nuclear plant at Indian Point on the Hudson. The lightning strikes led to what the spokesman called a "cascading effect" that shut down the power system at about 9:30 p.m.

I think Brass tries to do too much with his lead, and in trying to put it all in context leaves you breathless.

In contrast to today's paper, the rest of the News piece is written in a very dry tone; it's facts-on-a-stick, no real personality.

The next day's News lead article, by Donald Singleton, is better and reflects that the News, like just about everyone else, missed the lead the previous night: Lights Go on, End Nightmare: 3,400 Jailed, 558 Cops Hurt in 25 Hours of Terror

The Great Blackout of 1977 ended late last night after 25 hours that saw the city racked by arson and looting in a night and day of "terror."

The awakening from the total power blackout left many streets littered with ugly debris, and a strange, groggy day of empty skyscrapers and locked stores and hushed subways and streets without traffic lights, and buildings that were burning for no sensible reason.

Oddly, the New York Post doesn't have their original coverage up; instead, they've been running boring lookbacks.

The Times' Joyce Purnick, who was at the Post then, remembers what it was like: The ’77 Blackout: Inside the Command Center

I was a reporter at The New York Post then, a mayoral election was under way, I was covering it, and the blackout hit just as I was leaving The Post’s office downtown on South Street that very hot summer night. I ran up the stairs to the city room, said I would find the mayor, Abe Beame, ran back down the stairs, and walked over to City Hall. It was deserted. ...

There were frequent briefings — many by the shirt-sleeved mayor, who was 71 at the time. Throughout the night and into the morning hours, he and members of his administration reflected confidence that the city would get through the emergency, that the mayor was in firm control of a tough situation. “You couldn’t buy this attention,’’ said one of Mr. Beame’s political deputies, obviously confident his candidate had done well.

I still wonder whether they were not fully aware of the city’s trauma that night. Because reporters in the command center didn’t get a valid sense of the city’s reality. We were in a bunker, living on shards of fact, fragments of information, in an era, remember, without cellphones and text-messaging, and on a night without television.

Only later did we learn about the extent of the chaos and looting in the South Bronx, Harlem and in Bushwick. In pockets of the city — in lower Manhattan where the mayor toured hospitals and fire houses at 2 a.m. — things were calm. And in other pockets, New Yorkers were frightened of New Yorkers. In some places New Yorkers were abusing their neighbors.

Only when I got back to The Post the next day did I realize the destructive toll the blackout had taken.

Beame's aides thinking they had handled things well has gotta be one of the all-time political blunders.

Finally, Time magazine's article after the blackout shows the advantages of its extra time, with a great lead and all sorts of interesting details that didn't need to be filed over the phone or by candlelight (oddly enough, there's no byline on the piece): Night of Terror

It was a crisis of light, and of darkness—the kind of event that brings out the best and the worst in people. Certainly the 1965 blackout could never happen again, or so New Yorkers had thought. But something very much like it struck Wednesday the 13th, only this time it was frighteningly different. Through the long, sweaty night and most of the following day, the nation's largest city was powerless, lacking both the electricity on which it depends so heavily and any means to stop a marauding minority of poor blacks and Hispanics who, in severe contrast to 1965, went on a rampage, the first since the hot summer riots of the 1960s. They set hundreds of fires and looted thousands of stores, illuminating in a perverse way twelve years of change in the character of the city, and perhaps of the country. ...

At Hearn's department store in Brooklyn, youths stripped clothing from window mannequins, broke their limbs and scattered them on the floor. Said Miguel Ten, a Viet Nam veteran who stood guarding Arnet's Children's Wear store: "This reminds me of Pleiku in 1966. There was a war out here. And the mannequins remind me of the dead people I saw in Nam without legs and arms." ...

Many looters seemed scarcely aware that they were stealing. Said one of two black boys standing outside a stripped bicycle shop near Columbia University: "We're just out shopping with our parents. This is better than going to Macy's." Some blacks resented all the fuss over the looting. Said Lorraine, 14, who had helped plunder a drugstore in East Harlem: "It gets dark here every night. Every night stores get broke into, every night people get mugged, every night you scared on the street. But nobody pays no attention until a blackout comes."

More people than just store owners had to make fresh starts on the morning after the night of darkness. Rose Stevens, an elderly widow, wandered weeping down Broadway in Brooklyn, looking for a new place to live after spending the night alone in her $57-a-month apartment above a meat market that had been burned out by vandals. "I wish I died," she cried. "I'm almost 70 years old, and I have no place to go."

Many black and Hispanic leaders across the country were dismayed by the rioting. In a typical comment, Carlos Castro, president of Chicago's Puerto Rican United Front, noted that the plunderers were poor and lived in slum housing, though he said of the violence: "You can't justify it." So far, there were no signs of a white backlash, even though many broadcast and newspaper accounts of the power failure emphasized the disorders. Sample headline from the Los Angeles Times: CITY'S PRIDE IN ITSELF GOES DIM IN THE BLACKOUT. Newspapers abroad also focused on the looting. A headline from Tokyo's Mainichi Shimbun: PANIC GRIPS NEW YORK; from West Germany's Bild Zeitung: NEW YORK'S BLOODIEST NIGHT; from London's Daily Express: THE NAKED CITY. ...

Nonetheless, the overwhelming majority of New Yorkers and visitors responded to the crisis with some of the same good humor and willingness to help each other that they had exhibited twelve years earlier. At Beame's request, stores, banks and most offices closed, reducing traffic on the city's streets. At the intersection of Park Avenue and 79th Street in Manhattan, an athletic young man wearing a cape and holding a pink flare controlled traffic like a matador handling a bull. On the other side of the island, traffic was directed on Riverside Drive by David Epstein, 17 He joked: "My mother told me to go out and play in the traffic, and here I am." Sixteen passers-by turned Coney Island's 150-ft.-high Wonder Wheel by hand, enabling stranded riders to reach the ground. ...

Few bars remained open, and they were packed with thirsty people even though their ice supplies were rapidly melting. Said one woman who had visited three other bars before she stopped at P.J. Clarke's, a well-known East Side watering place: "We're typical New Yorkers. We're going to get smashed." At Elaine's restaurant on Manhattan's upper East Side, tables were moved outdoors for a block party. The guests included Woody Allen, Al Pacino, Andy Warhol and Designer Calvin Klein. At One Fifth, a Greenwich Village restaurant decorated with fittings from the cruise ship R.M.S. Caronia, a patron quipped: "We've hit an iceberg." Pianist Nat Jones scrounged a candle to light his keyboard and played It Ain't Necessarily So. Unfortunately, it was. ...

Times photo of people on Broadway in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn looting by Tyrone Dukes.

Fourth fireworks

It's in some ways appropriate that Wimbledon always falls on the Fourth--even as the Brits are reminded of their biggest loss ever, they can also futilely try to win their own tournament (Virginia Wade was the last Englishwoman to win, in 1977 (on her 18th try); Fred Perry was the last Englishman to win, in 1936).

Oh well, at least the British press can have a field day with Rafael Nadal (who's my favorite player, largely thanks to his French Open blogging the last two years) and his match today:

Nadal Beats Soderling and the Rain at Wimbledon , John Branch in the Times: Rafael Nadal and Robin Soderling took the court eight times. The first was on Saturday. The last was today.

Their five-day, five-set passion play at Wimbledon finally ended after more than 4 hours of tennis on the court and 92 hours of waiting off of it. Nadal beat Soderling and the rain, ending a tedious and testy match, 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (7), 4-6, 7-5.

Nadal, from Spain and seeded second in the tournament, dropped to his knees in joy, as if he had won something far more meaningful than a third-round match over a 28th-ranked player. Soderling, a Swede, challenged the last point before offering a tepid congratulatory handshake.

“Very happy,” said Nadal, who called it the toughest match of his career. “Very happy with the victory. Very happy about finishing the match.” ...

The drama of the day belonged to Nadal and Soderling, and much of it came after their match ended. Nadal sniped at the perceived slights he felt from Soderling. Among other things, Nadal said Soderling would not say hello to him, even after Nadal greeted him repeatedly.

“After four days, that’s not normal, no?” Nadal said. ...

When the it finally ended, Nadal was relieved to advance to the fourth round, where he will meet Mikhail Youzhny. But he struggled to look forward, not back. He accused Soderling of many discourtesies, on and off the court.

Soderling picked at his shorts between points, imitating a Nadal habit and drawing laughter from the crowd. In the 10th game of the fifth set, Soderling cheered with a fist pump when a ball hit the tape atop the net and trickled over for a point, though it has become custom among players to offer a sheepish apology. Nadal, annoyed by the post-match frostiness, later imitated Soderling’s handshake by sticking out his hand and turning his head away.

He was asked how he thought Soderling conducted himself.

“Really, the truth, maybe worst possible,” said Nadal, who speaks with fractured, but improving, English, and sometimes asks an interpreter for help.

“In the end, we will see what’s happening in the end of life, no?” he added. ...

Soderling did not hear Nadal’s comments, and seemed surprised to learn of the criticism. He said he would not air such laundry in public.

“If he’s complaining about that, that I never say ‘Hi’ to him, what can I do?” Soderling said.

Asked about the omission of a courtesy wave when his ball struck the net and trickled over, Soderling seemed perplexed by the custom.

“Why should I say I’m sorry when it’s the happiest moment of my life?” he said.

European Pressphoto Agency photo of Nadal by Lindsey Parnaby in the Times.

C for 'cuckoo'

Really, you can't make up some of this stuff going on as the Bush administration runs out the clock:

Dana 'I'm a man' Milbank in the Post, The Cheese Stands Alone: Vice President Cheney's recent declaration that he is not part of the executive branch has prompted hard questions, and nobody in the White House has a good answer for why Cheney -- who hovered near Bush's desk while the president spoke -- had turned himself into a fourth branch of government. ...

Already under fire for his secretive ways, Cheney refused to comply with an order governing the care of classified documents; his office concluded that the order did not apply because he was not "an entity within the executive branch."

That's quite opposite the argument Cheney made in 2001, when he said that a congressional probe into the workings of his energy task force "would unconstitutionally interfere with the functioning of the executive branch." Cheney has, in effect, declared himself to be neither fish nor fowl but an exotic, extraconstitutional beast who answers to no one. ...

It's not entirely surprising that Cheney would attempt to flee the executive branch, given Bush's sub-30-percent standing in polls. But Democrats in Congress were not welcoming their new transfer. "The vice president's theory seems to be one almost laughable on its face, that he's not part of the executive branch," Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) said in a conference call with reporters from his car. "I think if you ask James Madison or Benjamin Franklin or any of the writers of the Constitution, they'd almost laugh if they heard that."

Madison and Franklin did not return phone calls yesterday.

Maybe Schumer was just jealous. After all, Cheney enjoys perks not available to his colleagues in the legislative branch: the mansion off Massachusetts Avenue, Air Force Two, a West Wing office and a huge staff in the, uh, Executive Office Building next to the White House.

Over on the House side of the Capitol, the chairman of the Democratic caucus, Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), was equally unforgiving. He wants Congress to cut funding for the executive branch to reflect the fact that the Office of the Vice President is no longer part of that branch.

Cruelly, Emanuel said he would also oppose any attempt by Cheney to play in the congressional baseball game, held last night. "He would remake the rules to his liking," the congressman explained.

Photo of Vice President Cheney from whitehouse.gov (not house.gov or senate.gov)

Dancing with a dragon

The Times' second day of articles on Rupert Murdoch takes a look at how he's operating in China. Paragraphs 11 and 12 of Dealings in China: It’s Business, and It’s Personal are particularly interesting, if slightly off-topic:

News Corporation officials in Beijing and Hong Kong declined to comment for this article. After The New York Times began a two-part series on Monday about how Mr. Murdoch operates his company, the News Corporation issued a statement:

“News Corp. has consistently cooperated with The New York Times in its coverage of the company. However, the agenda for this unprecedented series is so blatantly designed to further the Times’s commercial self interests — by undermining a direct competitor poised to become an even more formidable competitor — that it would be reckless of us to participate in their malicious assault. Ironically, The Times, by using its news pages to advance its own corporate business agenda, is doing the precise thing they accuse us of doing without any evidence.”

What about paragraph 13? Well, it's the Times, so:

China has never been a make-or-break proposition for the News Corporation, since its operations here represent a small part of the company, which is valued at $68 billion. But Mr. Murdoch pushed for nearly 15 years to create a satellite television network that would cover every major market in the world, including China.

Heh, heh. Now that's power--or arrogance. Very Chinese, in a way.

The balance of the piece is interesting; obviously, to the extent Murdoch's (third) wife is Chinese, he's got more than a business interest in the country. I've never really liked him, but have generally thought of him as one of the few media executives who actually knows what he's doing. He's like Ted Turner, but on a much larger (and less soft) scale.

Some tidbits from Joseph Kahn's slightly disjointed piece:

Mr. Murdoch’s initial foray into China was disastrous. Shortly after he purchased the satellite broadcaster Star TV in Hong Kong for nearly $1 billion in 1993, he made a speech in London that enraged the Chinese leadership.

He said that modern communications technology had “proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere.” Star could beam programming to every corner of China, and Murdoch had paid a big premium for the broadcaster for that reason.

Prime Minister Li Peng promptly outlawed private ownership of satellite dishes, which had once proliferated on rooftops. Star TV faced a threat to its viability.

Chinese leaders rebuffed his attempts to apologize in person — a ban that lasted nearly four years. But he sought to placate them. ...

Mr. Zhu noted that Mr. Murdoch had become an American citizen to comply with television ownership rules in the United States. He joked that if he wanted to broadcast more in China, he should consider becoming Chinese, a person who attended the meeting recalled. ...

The Murdochs often echoed the Chinese government line. In a 1999 interview with Vanity Fair, Mr. Murdoch spoke disparagingly of the Dalai Lama, whom the Chinese condemn as a separatist. “I have heard cynics who say he is a very political old monk shuffling around in Gucci shoes,” he said.

James Murdoch, who ran Star TV from 2000 to 2003, said in a speech in Los Angeles in 2001 that Western reporters in China supported “destabilizing forces” that are “very, very dangerous for the Chinese government.” He lashed out at the Falun Gong spiritual sect, which had just endured brutal repression in China, calling it “dangerous and apocalyptic.” ...

Wendi Murdoch has stepped up her role in China. She plotted a strategy for the News Corporation’s social networking site, MySpace, to enter the Chinese market, people involved with the company said. The News Corporation decided to license the MySpace name to a local consortium of investors organized by Ms. Murdoch.

As a local venture, MySpace China, which began operations in the spring, abides by domestic censorship laws and the “self discipline” regime that governs proprietors of Chinese Web sites. Every page on the site has a link allowing users or monitors to “report inappropriate information” to the authorities. Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have made similar accommodations for their Web sites in China.

The Murdochs will soon be able to call Beijing home. Workers have nearly finished renovating their traditional courtyard-style house in Beijing’s exclusive Beichizi district, a block from the Forbidden City. Beneath the steep-pitched roofs and wooden eaves of freshly coated vermillion and gold, the courtyard has an underground swimming pool and billiard room, according to people who have seen the design.

Plainclothes security officers linger on the street outside. One neighbor is the retired prime minister, Mr. Zhu, who invited Mr. Murdoch to become Chinese.

My guess is at some point Murdoch will indeed take up Chinese citizenship; he's nothing if not opportunistic, and heck--as an Australian, China's practically family.

Reuters photo of Rupert and Wendi Murdoch by Chris Pizzello in the Times.

Poles of insanity

There's a hilarious article in the British press about the twin leaders of Poland, entitled Tweedlenice and Tweedlenasty play a game of Poles apart.

Aside from the unprecedented, in my memory, spectacle of twins running a major nation, it seems there's all sorts of wacky things about them:

Half a century after the European Union was created to forgive and forget the Last Great Misunderstanding, the identical twins who are Poland’s president and prime minister let off a massive stink bomb at last week’s summit by mentioning the war. To cries of horror – and some quiet chortles – Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski invoked Nazi atrocities in order to cut Germany down to size.

So Jaroslaw, the prime minister and elder twin by 45 minutes, had no hesitation in invoking the “incomprehensible crimes” against Poland as a means of raising the stakes in its battle with Germany over voting rights. This had become an obstacle to agreeing a revamped EU treaty. “If Poland had not had to live through the years of 1939-45, Poland would today be looking at the demographics of a country of 66m,” he said on Polish radio in an implicit reference to his country’s 6m war dead.

His point was that whereas the EU voting system currently gives Poland disproportionate clout, proposed changes based on population size would give most benefit to Germany’s 82m people while Poland with 38m people could be steamrollered – despite being the largest of the 10 countries that joined the enlarged club in 2004.

The 58-year-old Kaczynski twins had kept the summit guessing about which would turn up – some thought this a bit academic since they are nearly identical, though Jaroslaw plays the Mr Nasty to Lech’s Mr Nice. “Both are small, not very bright, mean-minded and resemble provincial solicitors – which Lech used to be,” said a journalist who has met them. ...

Lech is married to Maria, a tireless charity worker who sometimes acts as his special envoy. Jaroslaw, who has never married and lives with his formidable mother Jadwiga and her cats, is said to have a “dark side”, although the rumour is based on little more than his unaccountable absences. Recently he revealed he had no bank account and deposited his money with his mother. “I don’t want a situation in which someone pays some money into my account without my knowledge,” he said mysteriously. ...

The twins briefly stole the limelight at the age of 12 as stars of the 1962 film The Two Who Stole the Moon, playing a couple of greedy, cruel youths who dream up a plan to steal the moon and sell it.

You can't make this stuff up; it seems ever since Bush vs. Gore, the political world's turned unabashedly Shakespearean.

Uncredited photo of Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski from Der Spiegel.

Tail wagging the dog

For some reason, I've never liked John Edwards. It's weird--on paper, I agree with many of his positions, and I think he's a decent person; but there's something about him that's always rubbed me the wrong way.

I could expound, but now there's a YouTube video that captures exactly what I mean.

The video is hilarious, and devestating; the synching of music to action is perfect, and you couldn't ask for a more perfect ending.

I really don't see how Edwards can overcome this--he's clearly deadly earnest in it. If he manages to stick around, at some point one of his opponents can just run this as a commercial in swing states.

It'll play particulary well down South.

Flocked together

If Let's be friends and it's "Touching photos of unusual animal friendships" doesn't bring a smile to your face... you may not be human?

Six dwarves, two nobles

Watching the (eight!) Democratic candidates debate tonight I was struck by what a smug group it was.

Most of them spoke almost-dismissively of President Bush and his policies; there was a sense that if not them personally, someone else on the stage had the obvious fix for Iraq, health care, immigration--just put a Democrat in office, give him/her 67 votes in the Senate, and our problems would be solved.

It all seemed very un-Democratic, this attitude that the winner of the primary was a shoo-in to be the leader of the free world, and rightfully so.

I mean, sure the Bush administration has been a nearly unparalleled disaster (worse since Hoover? Hayes?) But that doesn't mean some ex-Senator from Alaska, or a Midwest representative, should have any sense of entitlement to the office.

Heck, Bush ran and won two national campaigns; with the exception of Sen. Clinton, who remarkably was one of the more down-to-earth members of this group, none of the candidates have anything near that accomplishment.

Besides which, I don't see how it helps Democrats to simplify the problems we face; people associate decisive, straight-forward policies with Republicans (the daddy party). We depend on Democrats to deal with tricky, complicated situations (the mommy party). The post 9/11-world has become more complicated; Pres. Bush hasn't dealt well with it not because he's evil or stupid, but because he's ill-equipped; that doesn't mean the solutions are easy.

That's why it was interesting when Senator Biden lashed out halfway through at how the other candidates were oversimplifying the situation in Iraq, reducing it to pull out, everything will be fine.

It was a good role for him to play, given his stature in the Senate. Biden probably did the most to join what has been a three-person race, coming across as experienced and adult, nearly gruff. And given that he's barely a blip in the polls, he was treated by the other candidates almost as the expert arbiter on Iraq.

By contrast, I had an almost-visceral dislike to Sen. Edwards. Sure, he needed to try and break up the Clinton-Obama logjam at the top; but go after them on legitimate big differences, rather than saying he'd have handled himself differently during the latest vote on Iraq reauthorization.

It didn't help matters that Obama pointed out John, you're 4 1/2 years late on that. Which led to Edwards later going through more contortions, contrasting himself with Clinton by saying he at least has admitted he was wrong for originally voting to go into Iraq but sequeing into praise for Obama for being right, first.

The other oddity of the evening was how much time was spent talking about Bill Clinton, either in comparison or contrast to his policies or, more overtly, in response to moderator Wolf Blitzer's question of what role they'd give the former president in their administration.

I mean, that's like asking Paris Hilton what she'd let Audrey Hepburn do for her.

But this group showed no self-awareness, with most saying they'd send Pres. Clinton around the world as some sortof goodwill ambassador. Only Senator Obama displayed any sense of reality, remarking "obviously Senator Clinton may have something to say about how I use Bill Clinton."

She laughed and appopriately blew off the question, although in the process referencing her "husband" for like the tenth time.

Clinton had an interesting night; Edwards really went after her, and a number of candidates also took cheap and historically incorrect shots at Pres. Clinton's policies (on Bosnia and gays in the military in particular).

She resisted the impulse to slap them down, turned on the charm and in general acted like she was leading the Democrats in a campaign against President Bush.

I was struck at how good she is at sounding presidential and how she managed not to be just one of eight. Her worst moments were when she fake-laughed off attacks on her or her husband.

She's got the classic powerful woman problem of trying to be strong without people invoking the b-word; given her front-runner status, her camp's obviously decided to let her take the shots under the assumption it's only a story if she reacts. I'd advise her to be herself; the American people don't vote for people who come across as inauthentic.

Senator Obama also did well; he started out a bit rough, stumbling over answers and very obviously thinking as he went. I was surprised, based on his rep; but after a while it made him seem more like a normal person and less like the slick politicians a lot of the others came across as.

Hopefully we'll get more of the tough truths than easy glibness as the race unspools.

Reuters photo of Sens. Clinton and Obama by Brian Snyder

The future arrives

As Ryan notes at the start, we're down to two contestants from 100,000 who tried out. Jordin I'm happy with--but Blake?!

Oh well; for some reason tonight doesn't feel like a big show, maybe just because I think Jordin's gonna win in a walk. But we'll see, Blake could get lucky and have the perfect songs.

Poor Paula's got a broken nose, which Simon helpfully points out; Paula gets him back by running her hands down his open shirt. They look back at Blake and Jordin in Seattle at the audition round; interesting that they both came out of there. So much for Southern domination.

Paula was a big fan of Blake from the get-go, Simon not so much. All the judges really like Jordin; I, of course, was also an inaugural member of her bandwagon... we should get special t-shirts.

They televise the coin toss to see who gets to sing first, as if it's the Super Bowl; Blake wins, then dumbly asks Jordin is she has a preference, she doesn't care, he even more dumbly decides to go first.

Blake redoes You Give Love a Bad Name, looks slick in a sport coat; it's fun to listen to again, but in combination with some bad camera movements it's got to be one of the most disjointed things I've seen on the show, not sure I'd have started with this. The crowd's into it though, big ovation eh, it was good, if you like that kind of thing. Randy gives him 10s for the beat boxing, but to heavy boos says the singing was just alright; Paula loves it, much better than at CBS (which Ryan later clarifies as a reference to the other studio where they film Idol); Simon says you're not the best singer, but you're the best performer, singing was flat but energy was amazing so it may not matter. Shot of Phil in his uniform in the crowd.

Jordin does Fire, which I don't think we've heard before. Ugh, very odd choice--in unflattering outfit, and the song is simply disjointed. The chorus part is pretty good; but really, whole thing is a bit average to me, nothing so notable. Gets better as it goes on, although she seems a bit out of breath. Wow, really starts to build toward the end; she just wails out--but song's not to my taste, so I don't know. Not as much applause but a chant breaks out for Jordin; Randy says your voice was stellar, brilliant, even if it wasn't super-entertaining; Paula likes it too; Simon says great young choice, but vocals were shrieky, round 1 goes to Blake. Randy says Blake wins performance, Jordin vocals; Paula says an amazing tie.

Back, clip of Blake talking about learning how to beat box in high school. Intersting choice by Jordin to go with new song first; Blake does now, Maroon Five's Am I Right in a blah sweater. He's very good, tone is perfect, a few problems vocally but I like the song and the cool, unspooling way he delivers it. Some more vocal or timing problems, hmmm; pretty pitchy at parts but it actually doesn't really detract from the song. Chris Richardson should've sung it. Applause not as nuts this time; Randy says great song, nice natural and pure vocal; Paula says great and relaxed; Simon says good, safe but not as good as first time, bad choice because the song doesn't make that much of an impact. He's right, it's nice but no wow factor.

Jordin chats about how she's always been singing, doing Martina McBride's A Broken Wing, which is from the only week I didn't watch. Wow, she's good--so slow and intense and heartfelt; normal blouse with a bird or something on it. A bit too quiet maybe through the first part, like she's swallowing her words, but you can feel the big swell coming--and out it comes. The second part really gets big; she's good, but didn't hit it out of the park in my opinion, even with the big finish. At her best you get chills listening to her, given that the last song is by an amateur I don't think we're gonna get that tonight. Randy says he's loved her since day 1, calls the song flawless, better than the original, wow; Paula says great vocal voice tonight; Simon says now that, was good. Many of her best moments on the show really are in between, when she's clowning on stage next to Ryan; she has an unbelievable amount of charisma and stage presence, she'll be great no matter what she pursues.

The winners of the songwriter competition are introduced, both from Seattle, This Is My Now. Blake looks funny lounging up against the giant screen to start, it's very mannered and hokey. Wow, the chorus is actually pretty good--totally generic, but has that pop hook songs on the radio all share. Blake's voice is just okay, it really drags him down for this one, no chance for him to throw in any flash. He actually sounds flat for a lot of it, it's not bad but not astonishing. Curious what Jordin makes of this; song drags a bit toward the end. Randy says this isn't your type of song, it was alright, don't feel that bad about it; Paula is like great job; Simon says all a little odd, asks Blake how he feels, says you looked a bit frustrated. Blake never really answers; Simon says we have to judge you based on the first two performances. Very odd strategic decision by Idol to have our final impression be a song both performers are hostage to.

Ryan's up in the balcony when we get back with random people to do a commercial essentially; wow, Jordin looks great in a black dress, the song is like totally different in her hands--it's slowed way down, and is compelling as heck. Man, I was wrong, here's the goose bumps moment--she is really good, gives the song a freshness and just sings it so well and truly. My gosh, this is something I'd buy. Big finish too, she totally blows Blake away; she's like in tears as it finishes, she really sells the song, I guess it totally fits her story. Wow, wow, wow; big-time applause from the audience, the judges are just sitting there. Randy straight-out says you were the best singer tonight, this is what it's all about. Paula says you're great; Simon says last week I didn't think you were good enought to make the finals--I was wrong; you just wiped the floor with Blake on that song. Yeah, it's true; big-time chants for Jordin.

Ah, what a great show sometimes; in my mind Jordin's just redeemed much of what's been a mediocore year. I'd vote for her--but the line's always busy.

They waste some time after the recap, Randy says Jordin wins, Paula says they all end up winners, Simon liked Blake's first song but Jordin overall.

Then, in a startling move, they have Chris Daughtry perform live as they 'recap' the season behind him. This show is dumber than dirt sometimes--why in the world would they bring back a great but losing talent from last year as your final image, when tonight's supposed to be about Jordin and Blake?!

I mean, Jordin and Blake aren't even on stage for the last three minutes; the last image you see of them is a shot from last week--behind Chris!

At least Jordin knocked it out of the park; if she hadn't you'd have millions of people wishing they could vote for Chris.

Jordin Sparks 3
Jordin Sparks 2
Blake Lewis 2
Blake Lewis 1
Jordin Sparks 1
Blake Lewis 3

Unmatched pair

So tonight we find out American Idol's finalists--and frankly, I'm not super-excited. Although I guess if it indeed turns out to be Melinda vs. Jordin, I'll be pretty jazzed.

It starts with an intro from Homer Simpson, who's not as good a host as Ryan. The mere mention of Elliott Yamin gets squeals; now that was a great year. They recap last night; I'm guessing they'll award Jordin one of the spots first if Blake's the other finalists. But if Melinda's in, they'll show her first, then have us sweat out Jordin vs. Blake.

They show Jordin going home, embarassed by all the attention but hamming it up; she gets a great reception at her high school and is in tears; there's a funny scene with her screaming with middle school kids, and another teary scene with her best friend; then a parade with like 10,000 in Glendale, more tears, cheers, it's pretty crazy. She finishes singing her I Who Have Nothing rendition, and sobbing emotionally--she really comes across well, would make a great Idol.

I'm assuming she's a finalist, they got her up there first, with Ryan reading back everyone's comments. And... ha, they fake her out, we'll find out later. They wouldn't screw her over twice unless she made it.

Next up is Blake; he's definitely a bit too much; lots of screaming girls, weird faces from him right into the camera, there's an emotional scene with his dad crying; the dad's a good guy, and Blake is too. Wow, he gets to sing the anthem before a Mariners game at the end. His dad's up on stage with him, gets kicked off by Ryan. They do the comments too for Blake... and nuttin, again.

Next, Elliott; who does look quite different with the Bob Dylan hair; same sweet voice though. The background singers are kindof annoying as he sings; just reminds you how thin Blake's voice is. Afterwards Randy tells him it was hot, Paula says she's proud of him, Simon says it was great.

The Ford commercial is a bunch of pretend-young versions of the Idols singing in their bedroom before the real ones jump into a car; it's okay. Now it's Melinda's turn to go home; it's more of an adult visit, less squealing. Big crowd in front of her old music school, which renames a street after her; they show her parents, hadn't seen them before. Then off to her church, where it's bedlam; lots of hugs, some tears. They do judges comments; hmm, wonder if they'll do something tricky and proclaim her a finalist. And... nope.

Quick mention of the band show as we go to break, full commercial as we get 'back'. Hmm, they're really gonna compress the results; Maroon 5 does something, it's like a grown-up version of what Blake tries to do every week.

Back, everyone's standing up there; Jordin steps forward first--so of course she's in the finals. 60 million votes cast; and she's in. Yaaaaay. She's really come a long way; totally developed her potential.

So let's see if I'm right; Blake is babbling about something. Melinda is asked to step forward; and sure enough, it's Blake who makes it through. Oh well; lots of jeering in the audience.

I guess I'm glad in a way because I think Blake's weaker competition for Jordin. But really, it should've been the two women fighting it out. Randy loves her, Paula too; and Simon says congrats to Blake and Jordin, commisserations to Melinda.

And she sings us out. Here's what I said about Jordin at the audition stage, and the top 10 women stage:

Ooh, Jordin Sparks--she has it, from the second you see her you know. Not a great body shape, but--she can sing. Not great, a bit sharp for me, but a big voice and good poise, does a hard Celine Dion song, while she's singing Simon says to Randy she's the best we've seen here. Randy says he's blown away; her dad is an ex-Giants player I've never heard of. A bit too much says Simon, even comments on her weird smile--which I liked, it was young and nervous and natural. Paula and Randy predict she'll do well. I could see her as top 12, has that kind of brightness and energy that gets the judges a bit giddy and slappy afterwards.

Ah, my fave, Jordin Sparks; another brother dedication, the photos are hilarious, she breaks down talking about it. What a great person; in bluish promish dress, looks elegant. Oh gosh, she can sing--so smooth, and performance is great, doing Reflection from Mulan. It just soars out effortlessly, it's almost unfair. A tiny bit rushed, maybe; but I really enjoy listening to her. She's sobbing at the end; Randy says a few pitch problems, but overall unbelievable story. Paula says there's something about you that's infectious, you're just a good human being who'll be around for a long time. Simon says it wasn't your best, but excellent compared to everyone else--massive potential at 17. Wow, even her dad is tearing--and he's an ex-NFL player!

And here's Blake:

Some kid with a Ryan-like hairstyle, Blake Lewis. Seems like an earnest nice guy; says he's a beat box champ. Not horrible, but not my cup of tea. I don't think he can carry a tune--good energy, but off. Simon, however, says you're good, maybe not as good as you think. Paula says you're good; Randy likes him too, but wrong song. They send him through, I don't think he'll do anything. His dad, a blue collar type of guy, is very proud afterwards, almost crying--his son says his dad is his inspiration, the hardest-working man in Seattle. Hmmm... nice kid.

Blake Lewis, who actually dresses his age, like some skateboarding guy. Gosh, this night is dragging... nothing so amazing yet. Good kid, sincere dedication to his folks. Nice song choice, Virtual Insanity, he's a bit breathless, but it all feels real. Does some beat boxing halfway through, interesting dance moves. Very comfortable with the crowd. Randy likes it, Paula too; Simon doesn't--first part was copycat, off the video; second part was good, third part wasn't good, no originality, very disappointed. There's a big fuss over whether it was original or not, it's just ridiculous.

Looking for two

It's the crucial cut to two, and the Idol contestants go home. Jordin gets a huge welcome at home, then sings Wishing on a Star by Rolls Rocye as selected by Simon. Nice white/dark dress; it's a fun, playful song. Not crazy about the melody; but it does suit her, energetic but with some moments for her to really sing. It's an okay performance, Simon didn't punch her ticket for the finals the way he did with McPhee last year--but she may not need it, either. Randy says great vocal, Paula likes it, Simon says you sang it brilliantly but the weird jazz version not great. Jordin says she'd never heard the song, a bit surprised but it's a great song so thank you; Simon very cooly and Britishly replies, pleasure.

Blake at home, Paula chooses Roxanne. Hmm, good choice; just hope he doesn't do anything too weird. In vest; yeah, a very good choice--totally shows off his interesting voice, the Sting reminders help him too. He's sometimes hard to understand, but sings it straight, no weird beatboxing stuff. Kindof a weird accent at times. Not amazing, but good; Randy says great performance, good vocal, A; Paula is beaming, fantastic; Simon says not earth-shattering, not as good as Sting, not great.

Melinda in Nashville, no big crowd but the governor; I Believe in You and Me is Randy's choice. Hmm; nice, melodic song; wow, from the get-go a great choice, Melinda is spackled dress, just croons it out--controlled, breathy, it's very compelling. She's especially good on the chorus; it's the perfect choice and she knocks it out of the park, very believable; this year's Somewhere Over the Rainbow moment. Big standing O from the audience, Randy says you rose to the occasion, Paula says one of your best, Simon says difficult song, your best performance recently, and you win round one. Thanks to Simon, I'd say. Simon asks Ryan if he's drunk, it's totally random.

Jordin back, in cool blue top and jeans. Says Mmbop by Hanson is her favorite song in that it always puts a smile on her face, audience cracks up, says hey, I'm 17. Doing Work Hard for the Money, producers' pick. No on-camera appearence by Clive this year. She looks great; but I don't like the song that much; she sings it well and it's a great performance as always, just not that great. Nice ending though, redeems it all a little. Randy says everything you do is hot; Paula says fantastic, Simon says it was very good, arrangement a bit old-fashioned but very good as he's cracking up at Paula.

Blake in weird white jacket, is totally smug, says he'd have Jim Carey play him in his biopic. Room Five, This Love--hmmm, could be a good pick; not that crazy about the song, but Blake is pretty decent--just hard for me to care much; he throws in his beatboxing; eh, it winds up just being okay. Randy says you should make records like that; Paula says you're totally in your element, Simon says it was better than the first one, you sounded very comfortable.

Melinda in a fun purple/yellow dress, says her mommy's her girl and has always been her idol; doing Nutbush City Limits. Wow, just powers it out; she's on a different level tonight. Seems re-energized somehow, maybe it's just good song choices. She's won round two as well; it's quite an impressive performance, fun to listen to--even does some things with the mike stand. Randy is like wow, Paula says we love you, Simon is like great side of you, brilliant performance. Simon says the round overall was a tie, but doesn't say with whom.

It's being set up as Melinda's in the finals, and either Jordin or Blake with her. Odd edit, seems like something cut out between Simon/Paula; she chose I Who Have Nothing; I like the song, think it's good for her; she's in pink dress, very dramatic, slow and powerful. She totally acts it out too; too bad Simon didn't choose something along this line for her. She's very convincing, hmm, face looks a bit like Oprah; it's just a stellar Idol performance, great pick by Jordin. Randy says another great performance, Paula says you sounded great--both seem a bit subdued; Simon says sang very well, but hated the oldness of the song, old-fashioned, wish it'd been something else. Hmm, he's totally setting up a Melinda-Blake final.

Blake doing When I Get You Alone; video of him on stage with Sir-Mix-A-Lot; hmm, kindof unfair, it's a great little clip to set him up. The song choice isn't very good; totally unmelodic and boring; it's kindof ridiculous actually, shows how boring he can be without his gimmick--throws a bit of it in at the end, it's all just very blah. Randy says it was allright; Paula says all 3 songs show who you are; Simon should rip him--oddly, says he really liked that, makes a speech about how he likes how he doesn't play it safe, looks like he's having fun.

Melinda's got a crowd back home, singing I'm a Woman, in bizarre all-tan outfit. Not sure about this, it's such a cliche; she's good working with the backup singers, she's really busting out but this is just an okay--and short--song for her. Randy says good range, likes it; Paula says you're stepping out, Simon says you deserve a place in the finals.

Really, it ought to be Melinda and Jordin. Will be interesting to see whether Blake can knock Jordin out based on balance. Randy says it should be two girls in the final based on singing, Paula says all 3 deserve, Simon says he wants to see Melinda in the finals.

Jordin Sparks, 3
Melinda Doolittle, 1
Melinda Doolittle, 2
Jordin Sparks, 2
Blake Lewis, 1
Melinda Doolittle, 3
Jordin Sparks, 1
Blake Lewis, 2
Blake Lewis, 3