The news for ‘Skins fans is not just that your team has alienated Jason Campbell with its attempt to acquire Jay Cutler. It’s also that Plaxico Burress could be there for the taking after he serves some kind of sentence on a gun possession charge in gun-unfriendly New York City. The New York Giants late Friday let the 6-foot-5 receiver go, apparently because he was still copping attitudes and generally evincing all kinds of citizenship dysfunctions. But he’s still really tall, very good, and—-this is the key for the Skins—-has a record of absolutely destroying the Philadelphia Eagles.
In other not-really-news, visitors overwhelmed the District this weekend, in every possible way, crowding and closing off the streets, jamming the Mall for just-past-peak cherry blossoms, checking out and participating in parades, and so on. It was enough to make me feel anxious for a sweltering, humid weekend deep in August when the Mall looks and feels like the Sahara.
One of my weekend obsessions these days is what Andy Alexander, the Washington Post‘s ombudsman, is saying about things at the city’s long-dominant daily. This week he’s writing about how the paper doesn’t do a good job of disclosing its ethical and reportorial standards, as other prominent papers do.
OK, so disclosing them to the public is one thing—good point, ombo.
But then he takes it one step further: “A separate question is whether The Post adheres to the policies in place. In my first two months as ombudsman, I’ve found a disturbing lack of attention to the standards and ethics rules.”
Alexander then goes on to talk about how “a surprising number of staffers told me it’s been years since they reviewed them.” So the lack of attention to the standards doesn’t mean that Alexander has found actual violations of the standards, just that people aren’t, like, having in-house seminars about them.
That seems like a non-issue. If you want to talk about the standards and rules, can’t we come up with some sort of wrongdoing first?
Unreal: The Washington Times sent someone overseas to cover President Obama. We are talking original WashTimes content here!
WaPo has the scoop on tourism season here in D.C.: It’s up! Actually, it’s down. Well, maybe in-between, or something like that. You try to figure it out.
An amazing bit of insight from a WaPo subhed on the fate of the national economy: First quarter ended on an upswing, but it is not certain that the worst of the crisis has passed. Now that’s taking a stance!