WHO NEEDS THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS CORPS?

ITEM: Wonkette founder Ana Marie Cox has written a killer piece on the utter uselessness of the modern-day White House Press Corps.

Name a major political story broken by a White House correspondent. A thorough debunking of the Bush case for Iraqi WMD? McClatchy Newspapers' State Department and national security correspondents. Bush's abuse of signing statements? The Boston Globe's legal affairs correspondent. Even Watergate came off The Washington Post's Metro desk.

Here are some stories that reporters working the White House beat have produced in the past few months: Pocket squares are back! The president is popular in Europe. Vegetable garden! Joe Biden occasionally says things he probably regrets. Puppy!

It’s an excellent point – so much so that I marvel that no one’s said this sooner. Prominently, I mean. And without lapsing into conspiracy theories or a knee-jerk “Who the hell does Helen Thomas think she is?” rant.

I’ve been wondering something similar for the last eight years – or at least ever since we found out even Jeff Gannon could get a WHPC pass. It’s considered one of the most prestigious posts in American journalism, but the work involves basically reporting whatever the President and/or his press secretary says, and asking follow-up questions that get dodged, spun or ignored – which may be why hardly anyone in the WHPC bothers to play hardball. What’s the point?

Yr average junior reporter could do that job. Which is Cox’s point – having a WHPC is ggenerally good, but why waste it on the best and most seasoned journalists in the field? If they’d been in the trenches where they belong instead of in the cushy WHPC, maybe we would have found out about the WMD hoax soon enough to make a difference.

Back on the street,

This is dF

ANTS RIPPED MY FLESH!

ITEM [via Neatorama]: Australia had a greyback cane beetle problem, which they tried to cure by importing cane toads. Now the toads have become an even bigger pest problem. The solution?

Meat-eating ants.

National Geographic has video.

Say it with me:

What could possibly go wrong?



DISCLAIMER: Yes, I know, I’m being silly and I watched too much giant-insect movies as a kid. And I know meat ants don’t eat humans like they do in, say, an Indiana Jones movie. Probably. I’m sure drhoz  probably keeps them as pets in the backyard.

Still  ... MEAT-EATING ANTS!

Off the bone,

This is dF

CARRY ON HAMMERING

This is almost a year old, but I’ve only just seen it, and it’s worth passing on regardless.

ITEM: Royal Mail has issued commemorative stamps celebrating the 50th anniversary  of two of Britain’s most revered cultural institutions: Hammer horror movies and the Carry On films.

 
 

Which is an interesting combination. Evidently, the first Carry On film and the first Hammer horror flick (the first color version of Dracula, starring Count Dooku and Grand Moff Tarkin!) both came out in 1958.

So now you can get a collection of six stamps featuring poster art from Dracula, The Curse of Frankenstein, The Mummy, Carry On Sergeant, Carry On Cleo, and of course Carry On Screaming, along with commentary by film critic Kim Newman.

I’m not a stamp collecter – not anymore – but I do like the subject matter. I grew up on Hammer horror (which explains a lot, doesn’t it?), and while I didn’t discover the Carry On films until later, I did watch an awful lot of Benny Hill as a teenager, which is more or less the same thing (and also explains a lot about me, no?). Granted, the Carry On films make Benny Hill look like Bill Hicks, and are unbelievably sexist, but then so were the 50s and 60s when they thrived. And anyway, I’m a sucker for old (and ribald) jokes and campy humor.

Hammer time,

This is dF