Another multi-platinum pop star bites the dust — so clear the airwaves.

Meanwhile, flies are slaughtered and politicians continue to have affairs.

“So, how long are we going to have to listen to Michael Jackson? Two weeks?”

It was a fair question, posed by some random fellow I bumped into not three nights ago at Fourth St. Pizza, perhaps the only specimen of full bar and slicery combined. Indeed, when the full news of Michael Jackson’s death spread, the slicery became a musical outlet for the late Mr. Jackson’s entire catalog.

Farrah Fawcett, freestyling it up. The poor dear just passed recently. Has anyone else looked this good on a skateboard since? Wouldn’t you rather have seen this picture plastered over the news rather than all that Michael Jackson stuff?

“At least,” said I, rather an autopilot response. But as I returned to my well whiskey on the rocks and slice of cheese (an odd combination best avoided, FYI), “Thriller” pumped in the background, and I couldn’t help but ponder this wise man’s lament.

Every time a certain grade of celebrity does something drastic, like die, all news outlets shut off and become a national memorial service for whatever entertainer has just passed on.

The question that went through my mind, though, was this one: What makes one celebrity deserving of a media circus whilst another passes damn near un-mourned?

Think about it. When Jack Lemon died, did the networks shut off all normal programming to force upon us back-to-back movies starring the late comic star?

No.

What did Johnny Cash get, but the morbidly humorous sudden spike in sales that is so useless to dead rock stars? Hell, Farrah Fawcettdied just recently, and damn if Michael Jackson didn’t steal her thunder by dying around the same time. I have seen few Farrah Fawcett retrospectives. 

The life of Michael Jackson was already a media circus, so perhaps  it makes sense to give him one last hurrah. I suppose the news knows a cash cow when they see one, and Mr. Jackson was very nearly a go-to guy for news of the weird.

It just goes to show you how precarious the news situation is right now. After President Daffy Duck, you sort of got used to hearing bad news about the prez. It’s interesting that with Obama in, the worst they can find is that he swatted a fly and that he hasn’t quit smoking yet.

So that’s the basic structure of the news this week. Days after his death, we have more front-page stories about how he’s not alive anymore. Obama is still smoking and is a proven fly murderer. And another one of them conservative politicians had an affair, for which he is “deeply sorry” — a sentiment that goes hand in hand with getting caught.

Not to sound like a grumpus marumpus, but is this all really front-page stuff? While it is amusing to read about how Gov. Mark Sanford’s aids were wringing their hands with only a vague idea that Sanford was hiking in the Appalachians (while he was in fact he was screwing around in Argentina, an awful place to go if a media circus is going to erupt, just for the horrible headline possibilities) as lawmakers banged down the door , I would expect that we’ve gotten to the point that we just expect our politicians to be sleazy and affair-prone.

Go fig.

–Angelo Lanham

The Spartan Daily goes back to bed

The Daily staff. Picture taken by bird.

I’m late with everything, so it only makes sense that about a month after the fact that a month after the fact, I dust off the tattered old blog and mention that the Spartan Daily has gone to bed.

I’m not sure what held me up. Last semester, I posted it not too long after it ended. But then, last semester I was filled with warm fuzzies about how I hated the idea of leaving the cursed Daily. To remedy this, I became a Student Culture editor such that I might not miss the rag.

It was quite an experience, I’d be forced to say. Firsthand, I adventured through begging writers to take stories and sticking around the Daily for the the sort of late nights that, as a writer, I had noticed of the last batch of editors with just a sort of passing sympathy.

Now I lived it, brother. I skated with manic fury toward the last train any number of times, occasionally missing it and getting a ride from mild-mannered executive editor Dave.

I can’t believe I ever used to think a late school day consisted of leaving at 7pm. It’s inconceivable now. When I do leave school before 2am the next day, I get this sort of uneasy feeling, like something’s pretty wrong with the universe.

I’ve adopted the newsroom as my home. It houses my jogging apparel, my drinking bird, and Turbo (my Go-bot, who has been missing for a bit. $2 reward if found). In between classes, I could be found in the newsroom at my desk, looking up naked pictures of Britney Spears on the Internet (and occasionally doing homework or sipping coffee.)

The coffee maker is still the inconsistent and therefor lovable dream I remembered it as — Oh the glory of a mechanism that takes three hours to drip a pot of java.

Who should I mention? Colleen, who worked next to me, waged with me the bad 80’s music war and accompanied me for $2 beer and pizza each Tuesday before the budget meeting? Kim, co-student culture editor, who I’m pretty sure is still plotting my death? Mark, keeper of the post-it board? Tommy of the unshakably smiling disposition? John, the lurker journalist extraordinaire? Carlos, the maniac whose love for pictures and layout kept me at the Daily past anyone’s bedtime pretty often? Or perhaps Matt and Megan, the design freaks, or Sarah and Chris, the scrupulous copy editors? Dina?

Naw, I’m just not going to mention anyone, ’cause it would take a whole paragraph. And I won’t mention Bianca, the 21-looking 29-year-old who somehow managed to write a bunch of hard-hitting news stories in spite of her two or three kids, who graced the newsroom every now and again. Won’t mention Chris, tall mellow fellow, or Adam the sarcastic, or Adam the Star Trek expert (he even knows what those fuzzy dots are called), or X the eloquent, Andrea the smiley, Allie the odd (but in a good way), Kelly Quiet, Danielle the story sleeper, Marcos the video game coorespondent, Selma the tall, Ya-an the sweet, Kaajal who looked after my drinking bird, Jason with the Engish accent, Rie with the nice sentences, Elisha the Republican (every newsroom needs one), Corrine who made herself scarce, Richard who made himself scarcer, or Pete of the loud colors. Or Ellis, the political guy.

The reason I didn’t mention any of those people is that I don’t mention people in the blog. It makes for a boring blog full of crap like “so, my cat threw up today, then I saw Jamie, blah blah blah me me me.” 

As I was saying before I didn’t mention anyone, I became an editor and went through all that agony because I got those warm fuzzies about leaving the daily. And now I’ve gone and done it again as a Copy editor. What a damn fool. Stupid warm fuzzies. Cheers.

Election over. Now, we can all stop paying attention to the news again.

So, that big ol’ election dealey is over. Did anyone notice?

I’ll tell you who did notice. The giant marching crowd of celebrators I heard outside the Spartan Daily newsroom just after the result was in, that’s who.

I grabbed a recorder and got quotes from any number of them, and they said some pretty inspirational stuff.

The country saved by SuperObama? Let's hope. Photo apparently from http://www.Freakingnews.com

One guy from Nigeria said that it was now impossible to use race as excuse for poverty, because a black man is president. Another guy said that this was an election of firsts, with Clinton the first woman under serious consideration for president, and Palin as the first vice-presidential female candidate on the other side. Another girl said that things are great now, since Obama would help disintegrate stereotypes black families deal with.

I’m still taken aback. For one thing, I couldn’t believe that I knew who the president was before 9. BEFORE 9. We haven’t had a good old-fashioned, cut and dry election like that in over eight years. We didn’t hear the result weeks later, or at something like 4 in the morning, we heard it just after the polls closed.

It’s almost suspicious.

And there were no trick states. No senile people who don’t know how to work their ballots. No trouble with the polls.

The oddest bit for me is that we actually have a democrat in office.

I’d love to have a really cool statistic for just how few democrats have been in office for the last, say, 18 elections, but I don’t, so I’ll just say DAMN, it sure is weird.

Half of me expected for some freak breach of the constitution and the space-time continuum to cause Bush to be inexplicably thrown back to the throne.

There’s another thing. Pretty soon, Bush will not be president. It sort of seemed like his presidency would never end, but here we are, with cold, hard facts proving to us that Mr. Bush Jr. is all ready to hop out of the White House into the history books.

Here’s the kicker: The candidate who made it in was a democrat who people were actually, genuinely excited about. Holly mittens. Not just, as in the unfortunate John Kerry’s case, a “non-Bush,” but as a candidate that a surprising number of Americans were still willing to rally behind on election day.

That’s right, when the chips were down, these people didn’t freak and vote for the old white man, even though we’re used to being run by white men, and even if said white man did scrounge up the seductive Miss Alaska as a running mate.

The question creeps up: With Bush gone, who will we make fun of? What will we be pissed off about?

While we’ll surely find something, the departure of Bush leads to a discussion of the enormous pressure that now rests on Barack Obama’s shoulders. The people of America are just waiting for a savior, and pretty soon, the nation is gonna say “all right, enough fanfare. Now fix it.”

And I fear that when Obama doesn’t wave some magic wand and end the war, fix the economy, and get rid of Carrot Top, that the people as a whole will feel somehow betrayed.

But that’s a bother for a different day.

In the year 2050, I can tell some kid who runs over my lawn flamingos with his atomic scooter that when the reign of now mythical Bush was ended by the first non-white man to win the presidency, I was in the newsroom of the Spartan Daily, telling my fellow journalists that I couldn’t believe it.

And I really can’t believe it. I was damn sure that McCain was going to somehow pick up the vote.
Ever since he picked up Miss Alaska and the polls swung, however minutely, in his favor for about five minutes, I was sure that it was the end.

“It’s gonna happen again,” I told me, “The democratic candidate causes a stir and ends up losing.”

Hell, winning the popular vote wasn’t enough for Gore in 2000, and Kerry just couldn’t win enough of America over with his “I’m that guy who isn’t Bush” campaign.

While I am brimming with philosophical pondering about whether or not the U.S. could possibly be hoodwinked into voting Bush in again, were it possible, I think I won’t for right now. Obama won.

Dwight Bentel returns

Last week, Dwight Bentel himself, the 99-year-old namesake of the journalism building, stopped by to see what the Daily was all about these days.

He reminisced about the old times a bit, and Mack prodded him to talk about the five-column photograph Bentel had put in a paper back in the day, before five-paragraph photos were at all common.

Then, the obligatory questions from the students arose, mostly of the ilk of “golly mister, what’s changed the most in journalism over the years?”

But the highlight of his visit occurred after one such question from a bright-eyed student went as follows: “What’s the number one rule in journalism?”

Bentel paused, then bellowed “Get it right!”

Bentel continued “The second rule in journalism: Get it right. Get it right, get it right, get it right!”

VP debate not as embarrasing as some hoped

OK Biden, y’can talk, but can y’run? (OK, fine, this picture is from when Palin was with troops in Kuwait) Photo from the Sun.

This is a bit strange. Our first impression of Sarah Palin came from a teleprompter speech, after which Democrats screamed, dropped their recyclables (or pulled over in their Geos) and hurdled under a table, screaming “the sky is falling” and predicting the duping of the public into putting into power another Republican regime. 

Republicans, meanwhile, set down their Bud-lights (or pulled their Hummers over) and pumped their fists in the air.

Following this, though, every interview that featured Palin made her look like a dislexic, in-bred cheerleader who read “Right-wing politics for Dummies” once as her only prep for the VP candidacy. Repubs promptly lowered their fists and grabbed a new bud light, while Dems sighed a sigh of relief and popped a fresh pack of tofu.

In response to Gibson’s question about her travels, Palin became as flustered as a hockey mom who’s been told that one of the other mothers is dropping out of the car pool as she talked about being Russia’s neighbor (repeating the word “neighbor” to comic effect), and citing her worldly travels to the countries of Canada and Mexico.

The Katie Couric interview was similarly pathetic, and I think it’s safe to say that we all thought the VP debate would be a meltdown of comic proportions.

I know I did. I tuned in to the 13″ Spartan Daily TV with the same sort of anticipation I used to have for a new episode of Seinfeld. I had my popcorn to throw at the screen, and a box of tissues for the incidents in which I’d laugh myself to tears.

Well. While Palin didn’t dissapoint in keeping up her trademark habit of answering questions other than the ones asked, I’m shocked at the level of competence she was able to feign.

Sure, we all had a good laugh when Biden pointed out issues with the current administration that McCain’s platform is said to agree with and she responded “well gosh darnit, there ya go pointing the finger backwards again,” and we all had a nice giggle as Palin shoe-horned pre-fab answers into questions that often had little to do with said answers.

The thing is, though, she shoehorned these fairly eloquently.  Maybe she didn’t win the debate, but she sure as hell didn’t blow it either, and the only reason most of us tuned in was to see whether or not it would be ”The Sarah Palin Meltdown Show.”

Of course, she had set the bar pretty low. We were all expecting more of the same, and she didn’t deliver.

Before the debate, the water cooler talk around the newsroom was rich.

“It’ll be funny,” said a certain Tommy.

“I don’t know if I’ll want to see it, though,” said a certain Colleen, “It’ll be like a car wreck.”

“Well, you sort of put yourself out there when you choose to be a vice presidential candidate,” a certain Tommy said back.

In anticipation of Palin’s meltdown that didn’t happen.

Who knows what happened. Maybe she spent some more hours with McCain’s coaches, perhaps she gave “Right-wing Politics for Dummies” another gander, but whatever changed, I’ll bet members of her party who were put off by her incoherent babbling are now creeping cautiously back to the cusp of finding Palin favorable.

Dollars do donuts,  left-wingers have lept back under the table and cried “armageddon.” I know I have: Palin is dangerous.

One more blog about Sarah Palin

A moose. Hiding from Sarah Palin, perhaps? Photo:Peter Mirejovsky, from canadianbiodiversity.mcgill.ca/…/ alc_alc.htm 

After this blog’s nearly summer-long slumber, I guess it’s time I pitched my wholly unnecessary $0.02 in regards to Sarah Palin.

No one quite expected crazy old McCain to pick up some random lady from Alaska, and the reaction from the general public is mixed at best, but Palin has managed to turn quite a few heads, and I’m rather impressed.

There’s the absurdity of the whole deal, for one. How is our nation’s most physically attractive moose shooter suddenly under consideration for the second most powerful position in the country?

Well, just look at her long list of qualifications. We have the aformentioned shooting of meese, and of course she’s a hockey mom, has a litter of children one of which has Down’s Syndrome, and of course she’s very very Christian. 

Aren’t these the most important aspects in regards to the consideration of a presidential candidate? AFter all, we’re dealing with a lady who uses the words “Iraq” and “God” in the same sentence, and seems to believe its all a part of some sort of biblical prophecy.

So maybe Sarah Palin’s a prophet. She’d be good in the White house, no? After all, who better to run a war and rid the world of heathens than an Alaskan prophet?

Bollocks, you say. She’s but the vice-presidential candidate. We’ll still have Maverick running the show.

Oh yeah? Who’s to say that 20 minutes after getting sworn in, Palin won’t assassinate 72-year-old McCain by sneaking up behind him and shouting “boo?”

McCain keeps calling himself an agent of change, but for the life of me, I have no idea what he could possibly be talking about, unless he intends on fully ridding himself of his now self-proclaimed “maverick” status by following Palin all the way to the radical right.

And I’m not the first to point this out, but would the McCain of 2000, when he was still called a maverick by people besides himself and a few die-hards, have even voted for McCain 2008?

I don’t intend to seem mean.

OK, maybe a little. But seriously, when choosing a vice-presidential candidate whose main qualifications involve hockey and moose-shooting has the ability to turn the presidential race on its end, what’s going on? 

Perhaps I’m overlooking the much ballyooed qualification that Palin is in Alaska, a state whose (relative) geographic closeness to Russia makes them “neighbors,” and thereby proves Palin’s excellent potential in foreign relations.

And tonight, we’ve got the VP debates. What fun that’ll be. Any SJSU-ites should know that Dr. Cheers is hosting a viewing of said debate in room 222, or somewhere on the second floor of Dwight Bentel Hall.

I read the news today, oh boy.

Have some coffee, like this guy, Lee Gray, in the newsroom of WKLO, which was apparently a groovy Kentucky radio station from the 60’s/70’s. There are more groovy photos where that came from at http://www.1080wklo.com/ 

Try this.  Let’s have a cup of coffee and read the news together.  How about the San Jose Mercury? It seems to land reasonably near my doorstep fairly regularly, so it’s easy enough for me to get a hold of.  If you can find a copy of today’s news, you can sing along, but more likely by the time this post is up, all this will be at least a day old, so you’ll have to dive to the bottom of the recycle just to find one.

Well, today is the 9th.  So.  Grab a cup o’ joe, curl up with the computer, and let me tell you about yesterday’s news. 

First off, now that Obama is the Dem. nominee, I have to wonder what effect the press had on the result. Supporter or not, the media weren’t quite fair to Clinton, whether it had to do with months of hinting that she should just drop out, an AP article in the Merc early in the race mocking her laugh, or any one of Letterman’s billion cheap shots at her pantsuit.  SNL didn’t help, and the early front runner was left in the dust the moment the wind shifted.

With that rant aside, back to yesterday’s news.  We could start with the natural disasters.  Indianapolis flooded, and the whole Midwest storm badness has already been said to kill eight, one in Indianapolis.  Hard to imagine that sort of weather while we sit here in the still heat.

China had a 5.0 aftershock. Peanuts compared to what they’ve been through. As of now, they say the effects aren’t known, although the aftershock did remind everyone about the threat of flooding, considering what’s said to be a rather unstable dam system, which is under surveillance.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo saw a rare violent crime, as a man plowed over a crowd of people in a white van, jumped out, and started “indiscriminately stabbing” people with a large hunting knife.  The man, Tomohiro Kato, 25, reportedly said he was “tired of life.”  So he stabbed a bunch of people, and he seemed to be aiming at rather geekish young’uns standing in line outside a comic book shop or something.  What a target.  The article said that it’s pretty rare for attacks like this to happen anywhere in Japan, and in fact, this is the second attack of its kind this year, which is alarming. 

Is this western influence?  Seing Coca Cola over there is one thing, but when our disturbed patterns show up elsewhere in the world, that’s something else.  Perhaps it’s narcissistic to think that the heavily eyelinered American troubled youth would hava worldwide impact, but this sort of thing is more common in our society, and to see this sort of violence pop up in a similar form in a place where it isn’t common leaves questions.

Elsewhere on the planet, Laura Bush visited Afghanistan in a gesture meant to prove committment to President Hamid Karzai, and that the U.S. hasn’t forgotten about that side of the world in the midst of all the exciting news about movie stars being spotted on the red carpet sans underwear.  There’s a wonderful picture of her propped up against some U.S. troops. She emphasized her commitment to women’s rights, and violence around the country continued as scheduled, with 11 police and one journalist dead.

Finally, in local news, we have some concern that Vientmase Americans might have a hard time getting into San Jose politics after the whole Little Saigon debacle with Councilwoman Nguyen taking all the flack from District Seven. Nguyen was the first Vietnamese-American to break through, and it seemed far from the last, or thats what the articles say. But now everyone sort of wonders. 

There.  Well, my coffee’s all done.  Wasn’t that fun, sipping java and having the news dictated to you from a local paper?  We should do it again real soon. Good night and good luck.

Spartan Daily goes to bed.

The Spartan Daily crew.  Done with the semster, content, and a little buzzed over at the Cinnabar.

At long last, the spring ‘08 edition of the Spartan Daily (free since 1934), has printed its last issue.  And we here at the newsroom aren’t sure whether to jump up and down for a while or sit around being sad about stuff.

It’s very sentimental, you know.  No more late nights in the Daily Planet newsroom typing and retyping articles and curling up with the AP stylebook.

No more late late nights setting up page layouts, printing out numerous rough draft “75’s” and having each one nominally corrected. 

I will miss the madness.

And no more wandering around on assignment, asking random people questions they don’t want to answer and having them say “you’re not going to misquote me, are you?”

Honestly, that one kind of bothered me. Just because some illiterate crackhead misquoted someone a few semesters ago, does that mean that I’m going to carry that torch?

Sorry. I’m better now.  And I will miss the countless hungry days, broke because many my work days were ursurped by the infinity of the daily paper, in which I made top ramen using the coffee maker to boil water.

Ah, the coffee maker.  I might miss you the most, with your confusing buttons and no apparent order whatsoever.

And Big L, the most awesome news editor in recent years, Kevin, our own Danny Tanner, Josh, the desperate sports editor, Kyle, the online wizzard, Michael, the brave man with the gay column.  And Dina, who pressed my enter button to print my pages so many times, and talked me off several cliffs outside of Dwight Bentel Hall. 

Liza, when you were there, you were there, weren’t you?  Tommy, of the abominable disposition, Kyo, of the soft spoken personality who really doesn’t like it when Angelo sneaks up on her and pulls her hood over her head.  Colleen and Kate, the story mongers, knocking poor writers over to steal more bylines, and ending the semester with something like 70 stories each. Jesse the quiet one.  

All hail Dave, the new exec and “tells it like it is” opinion editor of the semester past. I hope I didn’t forget anyone.

But I will miss the coffee maker the most.

Becoming Superman

And so it happened that on one day, like so many other days, I was sitting in the Newsroom of SJSU’s own Spartan Daily.  I had written an article on something or other, and had made sure the every sentence was short and concise, that every paragraph was short and concise, and had generally made every attempt to remove any shreds of personality, humanity, or warmth that may have slipped in by accident, as per my journalistic training.

It occured to me to think of the Daily Planet, Clark Kent’s newspaper.  Wouldn’t it be fun to be Clark Kent?  You walk around pretending to be a wimp, you get to wear an awesome hat, and you play tricks on Louis Lane by pretending to compete with Superman for her attention.

Not only that, but you’d also be Superman, blessed with complete unshakable morality at all times.  If you’re doing something, and you happen to be Superman, you can be damned sure that it’s the right thing to do, period.  It sure would be nice to wipe clean the old morally ambiguous slate, rife with rationalizations and all sorts of evil,  wouldn’t it?

Some time passed, and when the phone in then newsroom rang, I’d answer “Daily Planet,” and sometimes identify myself as Clark.  Someone usually tackles me on my way to the phone when it rings these days. 

Anyway, it occurred to me to have a Superman phase.  I never really had one when I was younger, because I was squeaky clean and had flawless morals, and thus no reason to look up to a dull hero who couldn’t be killed or swayed.  Now, though, it’s sort of interesting.

So I watched all three Superman films, courtesy of a great place called “Branham Video,” who only charge 50 cents as a late fee.  The first one was great, except for the dorky poem Louis Lane recites in an echoey thinking head voice while flying with the man in blue (”can you read my mind?”  It even fucking rhymed.  Argh.)

The second film seemed like some psycological experiment to see how much stupid a given audience would sit through.  The third one was about two parts stupid, three parts interesting, but mostly because it had Richard Pryor in it.  Weird.  It was also cool to see Superman battle himself.

The films, good or bad, made being Superman seem like a lot of fun.  So I decided to be superman.

The first step was to trip and be a bit more nerdy than usual while being my alter ego, mild-mannered student reporter Angelo.

Step 2, though, becoming Superman, was a bit more difficult.  I had to drive for three hours to find a phone booth, and while inside it, attempting to squeeze into blue pantyhose and a red cape only got me arrested.

Superman I ain’t.  but, it occured to me, I do have an Atari 2600 lying around, and I remember a friend from grade school having a Superman videogame.

So I spent some quality time with the interweb, and asked the internet fairy for a copy of the game.  My wish was granted for $0.98 plus shipping.

Six to eight weeks later, there was my wonderful postal worker, trying to cram the box through the mail slot.  I claimed my prize.  Mine.

I am Superman.

*************************************************************

Superman for the Atari 2600.  Pic from http://www.hallofvideogames.com

Y’know, for all the flack this game has taken, it’s actually kind of fun.  The first few plays nearly give you epilepsy, and you wonder to your self just what in the devil is going on.  And if you don’t believe me that gameplay looks like some sort of mental psychadelic spasm, just look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7U2TFIayos

Eventually, though, it becomes clear that you are moving through a very primitively rendered city, and the screens are indeed arranged in some sort of order.

The object is to pick up some crooks, including Lex Luthor, who have exploded a bridge. put them in jail, and toss the three pieces of the bridge where they belong.

I’ve gotten pretty good at it.  My best time so far is 1:59, and I defy you mortals to beat me.  I am Superman.  I can do anything.  Superman looks sort of like Superman, at least when he’s flying, ’cause his cape flaps.  It’s fun, and weirdly Addicting.

There’s no real violence here, and it’s sort of a lot like Superman, in that nothing (bullets, Lex Luthor) bothers you except kryptonite, which is floating around the city for some reason.  You can even find Louis.

The only thing is that sometimes, you pick one thing up and then something else comes in the way, and you need to pick that up, but the original thing won’t let go, no matter how many times you land, and then kryptonite comes around, and you go down one screen, which puts you somewhere else entirely because up and down screens are sort of random, and…

The 8-bit Superman.   I want more.  Was there a NES version of this game?  If there was, stay tuned, for the next episode of Becoming Superman. 

Little Saigon

is this the face of a communist? (Madison Nguyen’s photo from SJ City Coucil website)

I went to the City Council meeting night before last thinking that I could go in, stick around for a few hours, hear the decision, and run back to the paper and write it up. Not so. I got there, promptly received the run-around, and was directed to a group of angry protestors. I was almost immediately branded with a sticker that read “Little Saigon” and was told that only those who were going to speak would be able to take seats.

Just as I was getting some perspectives from the crowd on the issue, my photographer friend from the same paper, Annie, came charging up and said in a very journalistic voice” we have to go now,” snapping pictures as she went. So we went then. For a short girl, she’s a quick runner. Five years of track, apparently.

Inside, the people guarding the press entrance were upset because we didn’t have press credentials and also because I had a skateboard, which I had used to cruise on down to City Hall.After some lollygagging (Annie turns to me and says “in 10 years of doing this, I’ve never taken ‘no’ for an answer”), the lady finally feels sorry for the decidedly under-dressed student journalists (I’m in ripped jeans and in bad need of a shave, she’s wearing capri pants and what I remember to be an arrestingly pink shirt) and lets us in.

Annie is supposed to go to the photographer stable, and I’m supposed to go to the writer’s stable, but as I climbed the steps, all the other more proficient, nicely-dressed writers said every seat was taken, and I should kindly turn around.So I hid behind little Annie and pretended to be a photographer while I wrote everything down. And that was one crowded photographer box.

As the meeting began, Mayor Chuck Reed said, most certainly tongue in cheek, “we just have a few issues on the agenda, we’ll probably be out in 10 minutes.”Of course, a decision still had not been reached by 1 a.m.Probably about 95% of the speakers, each of whom had one minute to speak, said something in broken english akin to “I vote Little Saigon.”One fellow made an interesting point, saying that if we bow to one group, where’s it going to end the next time the want to get something done?

Speaker after speaker approached the podium, which Reed getting his cards mixed up and warbling their names as I tried to write them down so I could quote them in the daily.”This is impossible,” I whispered to Annie as Reed warbled someone’s name only for the speaker to timidly and indistinguishible murmer it again.”Welcome to Journalism,” she said. I expected her to add “young grashopper” and pat me on the head, but no such luck.

Fortunately, Kim from Channel 5 News was next to me, and fluent in Vietnamese. She was quite willing to translate all the non-english bits for me, and help me with all the spelling of the names. Kim, whoever you are, wherever you are, thank you.

By the time I took off, Annie had long since gone, and to make presstime, I had to leave close to midnight to get the article going, while the meeting was still going strong.

It seems like the vast majority of those living in District Seven, which is affected by this decision, want the name to be Little Saigon, so I can’t imagine why it’s been allowed to get quite this out of hand.  Calling councilwoman Nguyen a communist is a bit out of line, and some of the objectors (to Little Saigon) had good points, but it shouldn’t have gotten to the extent of hungar strikes and protests– if the majority wants Little Saigon, and they have 4,000 signatures to back it up, why not?

Of course, we all know now that the decision to call it Saigon Business District has been rescinded. so the real decision is saved for a rainy day. How can you have a meeting that streatches out past 1 a.m. and still leave it up in the air?