They publish stories like the front page one about Trachoma, a horrible and preventable eye disease that is ravaging (mostly women) in Africa. As with so many diseases, it results from and causes poverty - just one more twist of the spiral for the world's poor. From the story:
Trachoma disappeared from the United States and Europe as living standards improved, but remains endemic in much of Africa and parts of Latin America and Asia, its last, stubborn redoubts. The World Health Organization estimates that 70 million people are infected with it. Five million suffer from its late stages. And two million are blind because of it.
A million people like Mrs. Alehegn need the eyelid surgery in Ethiopia alone. Yet last year only 60,000 got it, all paid for by nonprofit groups like the Carter Center, Orbis and Christian Blind Mission International.
As prevalent as trachoma remains, the W.H.O. has made the blinding late stage of the disease a target for eradication within a generation because, in theory at least, everything needed to vanquish it is available. Controlling trachoma depends on relatively simple advances in hygiene, antibiotics and the inexpensive operation that was performed on Mrs. Alehegn.
Good for the W.H.O. I hope they're successful. You can give to the Carter Center, Orbis and Christian Blind Mission International at the links.
Then, to reward your good behavior, you can read Manohla Dargis' NYT film review of Basic Instinct 2. Here's the first paragraph, which is my favorite NYT paragraph of the week:
IT should come as no surprise that "Basic Instinct 2," the long-gestating follow-up to Paul Verhoeven's 1992 blip on the zeitgeist screen, is a disaster of the highest or perhaps lowest order. It is also no surprise that this joyless calculation, which was directed by Michael Caton-Jones and possesses neither the first film's sleek wit nor its madness, is such a prime object lesson in the degradation that can face Hollywood actresses, especially those over 40. Acting always involves a degree of self-abasement, but just watching trash like this is degrading.
Even watching it is degrading. The rest of the review isn't particularly worth reading I guess, but, like the movie it discusses, it does have a killer opening.
Those two stories made up for Brierney Two's discovery of the Smoking Gun story about the traveling demands of Biggus Dickus and his need to use his column today to remind everyone that John Kerry is a weirdo with his own set of demands. I guess Brierney considered this turnabout fair play. To that, I will refer him to his colleague, the poinsonous Jody Wilgoren, who revelled in this kind of reporting when she covered Kerry during the campaign. From the Howler's look at a profile of Kerry's campaign aide Wilgoren filed in April in 2004:
And so you really have to laugh at Wilgoren’s profile this morning. In the headline, we see the first spin-point—Nicholson is described as Kerry’s “butler!” And as we read the report, the image develops. In paragraph two, we learn that Nicholson is “the man literally behind the man, ready with an uncapped bottle of water whenever Mr. Kerry’s throat runs dry.” In short order, we learn why Kerry has this “butler”—this “former caddy”—at his beck and call:
WILGOREN (pgh 6): Mr. Kerry is comfortable being catered to. He has his moods and his myriad personal needs. A social loner, he is happy with an aide half his age.
The strange suggestion in that last sentence is explored throughout Wilgoren’s piece. Kerry’s butler “orders, delivers and usually lays out Mr. Kerry’s meals,” she writes. And that isn’t all; he “keeps little black books filled with the names and numbers of people Mr. Kerry meets.” (He also “dials many of [Kerry’s] telephone calls,” and “helps select his neckties.”) Homoerotic imagery abounds. At night, Nicholson—Kerry’s “glorified valet”—“often stays by his side until he is ready to go to sleep.” Indeed, “[w]hen Mr. Kerry stays overnight at supporters’ homes, it is Mr. Nicholson who accompanies him; in Iowa once, they shared a bathroom.” (Yes, she actually wrote that.) Indeed, “When Mr. Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, joins him on the road, Mr. Nicholson’s routine hardly changes.” But then, “it is the 6-foot-8 Mr. Nicholson who anticipates Mr. Kerry’s needs as they make eye contact across the crowds. It is Mr. Nicholson ready with a fresh shirt after a rally in 100 degrees.” Somehow, Wilgoren forgot to ask how often this “butler” does Botox.
And that's only one example of Wilgoren's nonsense. But kudos to the Brierney for defending the vice president. Heaven knows he needs the loyal support these days.
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