Walk Press

A few really good articles on the Avon Walk...

...from the Washington Post...

...from WTOP radio (also contains a mention on my team and quote from our team leader)...

...from Annapolis Capital...

Terrible disappointment

As I mentioned last night, I have ideas brewing for my next story... and as such, it requires a little research on my part. This morning, I delayed my walk due to weather, and embarked on the said research. Suffice to say I am greatly and terribly disturbed by Time magazines early recant of the Top 25 crimes of the century... which they did not too long ago as an 75th anniversary of the Lindbergh kidnapping.

I'm not disappointed my Time's list so much as I am with the female criminal representation on it. As women, we can certainly do better... OR maybe we do, and we just aren't dumb enough to get caught? But still, women account for less than one-fifth of the top crimes... and even then, Lana Turner/Cheryl Crane, Andrea Yates, Mary Kay Letourneau are all crimes of "victims" that were just sensationalized... Patty Hearst maybe the only one I could garner some respect for, but even her crimes were dubbed as her being a victim of the situation. Where is the female Lucky Luciano? That's what I want to see; shear genius... even the Tate murders give credit to Manson and don't even mention the women that did the actual crimes.

I'm not saying that women should commit more criminal activity or that I justify what Manson did, but I am saying I find it interesting that we haven't seen it. We very much romanitcize these male perpetrators of vicous crime and make the women as victims of another situation that devalues the horrendous nature of what they did. I need to champion someone else other than Martha Stewart or Winona Ryder or Heidi Fleiss... although Heidi was/is a genius female criminal or at least the potential is there... I wonder what she's up to these days?

Hugh Grant gets the beans

Ahhh, the sultry and sexy Englishman is in trouble again... this time it seems Mr. Hugh Grant has gotten himself invovled in a little arrest over an attack with baked beans. It seems baked beans are the weapon of choice these days in fashionable London... and Mr. Grant warded off lurking photographer with a tub of them. No word on the brand, or if Mr. Grant made them himself, or why he was carrying a tub of them at all--perhaps he was on his way to a potluck.

In memorium

The news today is that David Halberstam, respected and noted journalist, who was maybe best known for penning "The Best and the Brightest" was killed today in a car accident. He will be missed. Brave journalists are few and far between these days.

I would guess it appropriate to mention that Boris Yeltsin also died today... for those who were surprised that he was still even alive. Though, I have to say, I did appreciate the headline on the Guardian: Man for all seasons: hero, villian, buffoon. Yeah, that says it all even if the article is laced with all the expected commentary by other leaders hailing him as great--even if while alive they would not have dreamt of lending their support.

Just a thought

Nearly everyday, there is a headline about 30, 40, 50, 169 people killed in another country, namely Iraq (which goes to show that those atrocities in other countries don't even rate a headline), through some kind of bomb... and they are very low profile headlines... nothing that sticks out and tries to grab the attention, tries to elicit sympathies... there aren't pictures of the families mourning or troops securing the area. So while I think that the VA Tech shootings are horrific, I find it appalling that we pay no attention to the same tragedies that are befallen other countries. The situtation might be considered different... a campus isn't a war zone, at least not in a militaristic sense. We are immune to violence, yet enthralled with it and when it happens close to home, to something we can see and understand, it is memorialized. It's just a thought, but one that makes me wonder how we can so apathetically overlook worse atrocities just because the culture is foreign, just because the religion isn't Christian, just because it happens in a place most people can't point to on a map.