"Morning Meeting" is a recap of our daily editorial meeting. If we had a show today, these are some of the stories you would probably hear.
TONY SNOW CHANNELS TULL!
Good Wednesday Morning everybody! It's a drizzly, muggy, really bad hair day at
NPR-NYC-HQ. Actually looking pretty good are Dan, Luke, and Luke's friend Cotter. (Go ahead, make the joke....done? Good.) I'm not sure about Matt, he's on speaker phone in DC. Me—not so much. I don't think that's why I'm class secretary and posting the blog, but I have made a mental note. Our discussions ranged from the serious—three NATO troops killed in Afghanistan— to the seriously ridiculous—the judge in the Anna Nicole trial, sobbing Seidlin, leaving the bench and likely headed to a TV near you.
Read on to find out more about a town making its own money, a White House spokesperson who really likes Aqualung, and NPR's high standing with Google.
NEWSCAST: A UN convoy was ambushed near Kabul and an IED killed three NATO troops in southern Afghanistan, two Shiite mosques were bombed in Baghdad, President Bush is set to veto a bill that would provide federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, YouTube will launch nine international sites, and the most popular news story on Google at 8:43 am EST this morning was a Q&A on NPR's site about the violence in the Middle East.
INDIE CRED: New York's popular mayor, billionaire Mike Bloomberg, announced he's leaving the Republican party to become "unaffiliated," or Independent in political speak. Bloomberg has done a switcheroo before to get elected. He was a Democrat until 2001, then ran for mayor as a Republican (because it was a less-crowded field), and now he's a presidential cand...no, not yet. But this move suggests he will be. Will he be Ross Perot 2.0? Is his candidacy viable? Not according to one admirer on the NY Times blog, who said,
"As much as I would love for Mayor Bloomberg to be the President, I cannot see this country electing a President who is Jewish, not married and has no experience, or very little, with foreign policy. Too bad because Mayor Bloomberg is an amazing business man and has common sense which most politicians do not have because they are too caught up in their own agendas."
IN FACT, YOU CAN PRINT YOUR OWN MONEY: They're doing it in Great Barrington, MA, a town of 7,400 in the Berkshire Mountains, which now has its own currency, called BerkShares. Why? According to BerkShares Inc's website, "The purpose of local currency is to function on a local scale the same way that national currencies have functioned on a national scale, building the local economy by maximizing circulation of trade within a defined region." One Berkshare dollar is worth 90 U.S. cents and the bills have local artists on them rather than U.S. presidents. According to the AP, at least eight other communities do this too. We might send our video producer Win up to Massachusetts to check out the scene. We'd also like to bring in NPR's economics and business guru Adam Davidson to explain how currencies work, and to tell us, you know, how we can use this approach to get really rich.
HIGHWAY TO HELL: If you don't follow the Vatican's new commandments for road safety, you could be in BIG trouble. It's all part of Vatican's new "Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road." For the record, there's no indication that The Pope knows or is involved in some way. Heck, he just rides in the "Popemobile," he's not behind the wheel. Anyhow, number one on the list of driving rules is "Thou shalt not kill." Duh. Number six seems a little discriminatory—"Charitably convince the young and not-so-young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so." In other words, hide grandma's keys so she can't go to bingo. Also odd is something Luke noticed. Renato Cardinal Martino said the commandments were aimed at what he described as "itinerant" people, including refugees, prostitutes, truck drivers and the homeless. We thought we would get someone from the American Trucking Association to weigh in on the rules and tell us how he/she feels about being lumped in with the other targets of the proclamation.
WAIT, GAS PRICES ARE LOWER NOW? HUH?: According to AAA, the national average for a gallon of regular gas dipped under three bucks today for the first time in six weeks. Meanwhile, the foreign press is reporting that crude prices are up. I need answers. Now.
WHAT A DEAL—YOU GET 485 CALORIES FOR JUST $3.92!: Imagine you just want to go into a burger joint to gobble down an all beef patty with extra cheese and a little bit of mayo. The price may not be an issue for you, but what about calorie sticker shock? That would not be a strange reaction if the calorie count was printed right next to the price. Well the California State Senate approved a bill to mandate just that, and a similar law was supposed to go into effect in NYC on July 1, 2007. (It's been pushed back to October due to challenges from the Restaurant Association.) What do you think of this practice? Should local governments go this far to promote good health? Does it even work? We know warnings on cigarettes exist and smoking has decreased over time according to the CDC. Is knowing that you're about to eat a whole bunch of lard for lunch really going to make a difference? Let us know what you think.
SO COOL AND THEN SO NOT—HRC, CELINE AND THE SOPRANOS: For a fleeting moment, Hillary Clinton's campaign winningly embraced the pop culture zeitgeist with a send-up of the last scene of The Sopranos as a way to announce her new campagin theme song. Mr. and Mrs. Clinton sitting at a diner, flipping through the juke box, mimicking the dialog from the show. Chelsea is supposedly parking the car. And then, just like the Sopranos—a completely RIDICULOUS ending. The choice is a Celion Dion song. Right now I'm hanging up my journalist hat and putting on my real person hat. Could you get any less cool or interesting than Celine Dion?! She's not even American—-the right wing will have a field day with that. The song wasn't even on the list. It was a write-in vote! I think it was fixed. Okay, I'm done.
Even as I type this, Luke is working the phones trying to find a groovy staffer from the music-loving set at HRC HQ to comment on the song. From what I can tell from Luke's end of the conversation, the person won't agree to be interviewed. Now Luke's just laughing. He just said he really feels sorry for all the staffers who have to listen to that song, over and over and over again. He's still working the phones...details to come.
CHELSEA HOTEL, NOT CLINTON: Full disclosure— Matt liked this story, Luke was lukewarm—so you tell us. The landmark hotel in New York City, which has been a haven to artists like Dylan Thomas, Stanley Kubrick, Rufus Wainwright, and others, is undergoing some changes. One of the original owners, Stanley Bard, was removed by the board and replaced with a large managment firm. The Chelsea considers itself a "rest stop for rare individuals," where artists sometimes paid late, or in artwork which now lines the halls.
TONY SNOW CHANNELS TULL: At the congressional picnic at the White House, spokesman Tony Snow whipped out his flute and went to town. "Beats Workin'" is the name of his band, and they closed with the Doobie Brothers' "China Groove."
We don't have a link to that performance, but we did find this on YouTube. Enjoy.
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