A Naked Dwarf Walked Into A Bar...He Said "Ouch."
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"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.
It's a rainy day in Bryant Park and as we all know, the New York subways are not designed to operate when it's raining, so Matt had to overcome some delays to make it here. We did manage to meet, and it went a little something like this...
NEWSCAST: Hurricane Dean makes landfall, Michael Vick to plead guilty, Levin calls for Maliki resignation, last body recovered in MN bridge collapse.
HEALTHCARE FOR KIDS NIXED: The Bush administration is fighting states' efforts to expand the popular Children's Health Insurance Program to include more children in middle-income families. The decision may seem heartless on the surface, but the administration says the program, originally intended for low-income children, was never supposed to be a substitute for private healthcare plans for those who could afford them. The real question becomes, where do you draw the line between low- and middle-income families? Under this program, many states are drawing it at twice the poverty level--$41,300 for a family of four. That's not exactly la dolce vita, but a lot of it depends on where you live. $41,000 might support a family in rural Mississippi, but it wouldn't get you far in Los Angeles. We're going to look into this issue in more detail tomorrow.
OFFICE OVERLORDS: A great column in today's Wall Street Journal highlights office tyrants who hold sway over a miniscule aspect of office life, but wield that power like the hammer of Thor. You know you've got one, whether it's the guy who makes you run laps for a paper clip or the woman who won't approve a $5 expense report until every form is filled out in triplicate. We've even got our own office tyrant here at the BPP. He's one of the doormen in the building, and he gets off on making every person who passes show their ID. It doesn't matter how many times he's seen you and how many times you've said hello, if you leave your ID at home one day, he's going to have you twisting in the wind and begging to get to your cubicle. Of course, there is a small cadre of attractive women who seem above the rules of this man's fiefdom, but that's to be expected. (After all, it's good to be the king.) We're going to blatantly rip off this WSJ column and talk about this more tomorrow, as part of an occasional feature we'll call "Stolen From..."
THE MAN BEHIND MERV: Luke brought up a great point regarding the passing of Merv Griffin. It was pretty much an open secret that Merv was gay, but that was not discussed in any of his obituaries. We didn't mention it on our show either. (It wasn't intentionally omitted, we just didn't think much about it.) A line about Griffin's homosexuality was actually pulled by an editor from at least one obit. So what to make of the omission? We're not concerned directly with Griffin's sexuality, we're more interested in the fact that it was not discussed at all, anywhere. Is this a sign of progress? Is it a sign of respect for a man who never did come out publicly? Or is it a sign that nothing has changed at all?
BAD BOSSES BEWARE: A bill in New Jersey would allow employees to sue for up to $25,000 if their boss creates "an abusive work environment." New York, Vermont, and Washington State are considering similar legislation. Is this a necessary protection, or simply an open door for frivolous lawsuits? Also today, the AFL-CIO is set to name the worst boss in America. What's your best bad boss story? Come on, everybody's got one.
IT'S NOT THE BACON, IT'S A VIRUS: Obesity may be partly caused by a virus that makes human cells produce and store fat cells. This news comes on the heels of a study that found that people whose friends gain weight are more likely to gain weight themselves. In other words, America has come down with a really bad case of fat. And we're contagious.
THE RAMBLE: The first sentence of this article should be sufficient: "A dwarf performer at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival had to be rushed to the hospital after his penis got stuck to a vacuum cleaner during an act that went horribly awry." Did they really need to explain that the act had gone horribly awry?... A blind golfer in Pennsylvania got a hole-in-one. Sheila Drummond is apparently the first blind female to record a hole-in-one, and although she didn't see it, she did hear it fall into the cup... Cats can only remember certain kinds of information for ten minutes... People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has released its annual list of most vegetarian-friendly ballparks in the nation, and Philly's Citizens Bank Park took the #1 spot. The addition of wheat-based cheesesteaks to the menu apparently put them over the top. Of course, PETA neglected to account for Philly fans' tendency to eat opposing fans for lunch.
10:17 AM ET | 08-21-2007 | permalink
