Chavez Is So Not Dead

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LUKE BURBANK, host:

Welcome back to THE BRYANT PARK PROJECT from NPR News. I'm Luke Burbank.

Hi, Alison Stewart.

ALISON STEWART, host:

Hey, Rachel Martin. She'll be with us in a second.

RACHEL MARTIN, host:

Ah, my voice is back.

(Soundbite of laughter)

BURBANK: You're like Ariel from "The Little Mermaid."

MARTIN: (Singing) Ah hah.

Oh, speaking of which.

BURBANK: Brilliant. You know, guys, I got to tell you. It's good to be back in the old BRYANT PARK PROJECT co-hosting seat here, after my extended time off -although I'm almost ready for another week and a half vacation.

(Soundbite of laughter)

BURBANK: Spent an hour and 20 minutes into this. You know what I miss the most though while I was away besides your lovely, shining faces.

STEWART: What was that, sir?

BURBANK: It was the news that you sort of don't need but, you know, you really love.

STEWART: Yes, I do.

BURBANK: Which we present everyday on the BPP in a segment we call the Ramble.

(Soundbite of music)

BURBANK: Speaking of shining faces, Ariel - the Ariel of newscasting, Rachel Martin, will you enlighten us with your portion…

MARTIN: Sure.

BURBANK: …of the Ramble today?

MARTIN: I'm going to tell you about a story.

(Singing) Here's a story…

BURBANK: Okay, enough singing.

MARTIN: (Singing) …of a Venezuelan.

Okay, Hugo Chavez - we've all heard of him, Venezuelan leader. So he's not dead; no one killed him. But you night not have known that had you logged on to the BBC. Oh, oops, not the BBC, sorry. CNN yesterday put up a picture of Chavez with a caption that said, who killed him?

This is a big gaffe. Apparently, they had meant to post a picture of Sean Taylor, the Redskins player who was murdered this week, and there was just a mix-up in the control room and they accidentally put up a picture of Chavez. He was not happy, he is encouraging Venezuelan officials to file suit against CNN. CNN has apologized, by the way.

STEWART: I'm glad they said they were sorry.

BURBANK: And he said that it's going to spur a possible assassination attack on him.

MARTIN: Oh yeah, that's going to do it.

BURBANK: That was his - that was what I read on one of his main arguments, and I thought, that's kind of a stretch.

MARTIN: Of all the thing to do, that's what's going to do it.

BURBANK: Right.

STEWART: All right, my Ramble story comes to us from the Philadelphia area. The FBI and the Secret Service are expected to announce indictments today against a student at U. Penn, a Florida man, and three others as well. The student at U. Penn - he may be partially responsible for that huge computer crash and hacking that happened last year that left 4,000 students at the University of Pennsylvania without a server, without their computers.

This guy is 20 years old; his name is Ryan; he's a bioengineering major; arrested earlier this month on a computer fraud conspiracy. And I just - you know, there's this whole scheme with somebody in Australia and it goes on and on.

BURBANK: New Zealand, I think.

STEWART: Sorry, New Zealand. I'm sorry. Meanwhile, he's still enrolled in the school.

BURBANK: The article actually reads like some kind of John Grisham book or something.

STEWART: It is.

BURBANK: There's this detective FBI person who's trying to find out who this kid is and this kid has written some online poetry…

STEWART: Right.

BURBANK: …under a name. So the guy goes and finds this same piece of poetry written somewhere else under this.

STEWART: Yes.

BURBANK: It has a real name and so he puts it together. It's pretty interesting.

STEWART: I like the name of the FBI surveillance project. It's called Operation Bot Roast, as in robot.

Ta da da.

BURBANK: All right.

STEWART: It's funny over there, the FBI.

BURBANK: They - really those G men, I'll tell you.

(Soundbite of laughter)

BURBANK: All right a story not for the squeamish. This is about a South Carolina guy who cut off his own arm and lived to tell the tale.

MARTIN: Seriously, if you're eating breakfast, just stop or turn this down.

BURBANK: Yeah, the story, actually - this happened back in September, but it's just sort of getting a lot of attention now because this guy, Sampson Parker, gave an interview to NBC's Matt Lauer. By the way, if you had to pick a name for a guy who was going to cut his own arm off heroically, Sampson Parker sounds like the kind of guy who could do it.

He's a corn farmer in South Carolina, and he got some stalks of corn jammed in this piece of farm equipment. He reached in, he got his hands stuck. To sort of cut a gruesome story short, the machine ticked off some stalks and the corn field he was standing in caught on fire. Now his arm's stuck in this machine…

STEWART: Oh, my God.

BURBANK: He's an hour from any other human being and the field is on fire around him. So he sets to work with his pocket knife on his arm and manages to free himself from the machinery.

The thing that makes this story not as gruesome as you would think is how unbelievably pleasant this guy was in the interview. We should link to the interview on our blog - the one from NBC because he just seems kind aw, shucks about it. He's talking about how great his wife was about it, and how he's fine, and he made peace with the piece of farm machinery. He went out there before church and talked to it. I mean, the guy seems totally okay.

MARTIN: He's very adjusted. That's a well-adjusted human being.

BURBANK: Sampson Parker.

STEWART: All right, so some news - some happy news. Who watches "Dancing with the Stars?" Anybody?

MARTIN: I do on the treadmill at the gym.

STEWART: You know, I have a couple of friends who are devoted to this show -really smart people who just love this show.

BURBANK: They're both dudes, right?

STEWART: Who? The winners?

BURBANK: No, the people who watch the show, right?

STEWART: One's a dude; one's a chick.

BURBANK: Oh.

STEWART: Very into the show, "Dancing with the Stars." The chick might be happy because, Helio, the winner, the Brazilian racecar driver, Helio Castroneves, who won "Dancing with the Stars" just recently announced that his engagement is off. He is single, and we know this man knows how to rumba. Now, why he's single? Quite a bit of speculation, all the reality TV show blogs, there's been some hints that perhaps he rumbaed with his dance partner, the professional…

BURBANK: They did kiss.

STEWART: …dancer.

BURBANK: They kissed at the end of their big number.

STEWART: Yeah, well, she incidentally postponed her wedding last May because of her, quote, "demanding schedule."

MARTIN: Mm hmm.

STEWART: Yes.

MARTIN: So.

BURBANK: But this is also - this show, I mean, this is, like, home-wrecking with the stars.

STEWART: It's intense.

MARTIN: So they call it "Dancing with the - Home-Wrecking with the Stars?"

STEWART: You know, like, with dancing with people, that's intimate.

MARTIN: It is intimate. It's so sensual.

BURBANK: If - who knows what's stories of these two, but other people have struck up relationships based on…

STEWART: Yeah.

BURBANK: …showing them their Pasa Doble.

(Soundbite of laughter)

MARTIN: So…

BURBANK: If you like "Dancing with the Stars," go see "Strictly Ballroom."

MARTIN: Great.

STEWART: Good point.

BURBANK: (Unintelligible) "Dancing with the Stars."

STEWART: Great movie. And that does it for this day's Ramble.

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