Ed Guthman 1919-2008

 “INNOCENT PEOPLE WERE TERRIFIED BY THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT”

- ED GUTHMAN, 1998 

From accused communists to Freedom Riders to the Branch Davidians, Guthman protected and defended their rights

The late Ed Guthman,  who died last Sunday at the age of 89, was a rare bird the likes of which we may never see again in the world of American journalism. He was far more than just a journalist, he was an activist- using the power of his pen to bring our attention to society’s ills. His hard-hitting investigative pieces often turned up evidence which cleared the wrongly accused - and his gift of wordsmithing could then argue a persuasive case in defense of the so-called “public enemy” - eventually swaying the tide of opinion in the accused’s favor.

In short, he helped us all to see just how wrong we usually were about things.

Whereas the mainstream media gold-diggers of today love to blindly pile on any celebrity or public servant suspected of wrongdoing and rip their reputations to shreds, Guthman possessed that now-rare quality called empathy. He understood well how lives could be destroyed, families broken and spirits crushed by simple misunderstandings, or even by deliberate disinformation campaigns. Guthman held dear every Americans’ right to privacy, to express themselves freely, and their right to be innocent until (gasp!) actually proven guilty. What a concept.

Guthman didn’t just spend his life defending the famous — in fact, most of the people he helped were ordinary folks you’ve probably never heard of — but he had this uncanny way of always choosing the most unpopular person or cause in the room and taking a stand for their right to an honest, competent defense. Whether it was his investigative series which cleared the name of accused communist Melvin Rader during the 1950’s “red scare,” fighting for the rights of African-Americans while serving in attorney general Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department in the early `60s, or standing up for the Branch Davidians (at a time when it was quite unfashionable to do so) in the 1990s, Ed Guthman defended them one and all.

He knew about media witch-hunts, allright. As a byproduct of post-WWII America, he watched (no doubt in utter horror) as the private lives and political beliefs of so many innocent Americans were flung open to public scrutiny and ridicule. He saw names and careers dragged through the mud, sometimes with little or no evidence other than Joe McCarthy’s finger pointed squarely at them. Commie-hunting was America’s favorite pastime in the 1940’s and 50’s, often preferable to baseball, Mom, and apple pie, and it seemed like everybody was getting into the act: neighbors snooped on neighbors, becoming amateur informants in the federal government’s seriously overreaching effort to round `em all up. Few dared to question, lest they themselves wind up being accused of sleeping with the enemy, too.

Enter Ed Guthman, a 29 year-old reporter for the Seattle Timesin 1948. Having returned from the war (he was highly decorated, having received both the Purple Heart and the Silver Star), young Guthman was certainly eager for a good story - and boy, did he get it in the case of Melvin Rader. 

Rader, a mild-mannered University of Washington philosophy professor, had been swept up in the dragnet, accused of being a Red. A paid government witness told a state legislative committee that Rader had attended a secret communist training school in New York state in 1938. In fact, Rader had been with his family at a forest camp near Granite Falls.

Guthman, with the support of his editor and publisher, tracked down information corroborating Rader’s account, exposing the accusations as groundless, and exonerated the professor. His work earned the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished national reporting and was announced by Dwight D. Eisenhower, then president of Columbia University, which hands out the award. It was The Times’ first Pulitzer.

While most journalists toil for a lifetime towards one day achieving that most coveted of awards, for Ed Guthman, winning the Pulitzer Prize was only the beginning of what would be a very long and distinguished career. At age 29, this man was just getting warmed up.

Mr. Guthman left the Seattle Timesin 1961 to work for Robert Kennedy when he was attorney general and then as senator from New York, from 1961 to 1965. Mr. Guthman drew on those experiences to write or co-edit four books about Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968. (Guthman was at the Ambassador Hotel that fateful night and had spoken to Bobby just minutes before shots rang out.)

Last year, Kennedy’s brother, Sen. Edward Kennedy, wrote a letter honoring Mr. Guthman for a lifetime-achievement award Mr. Guthman received in Los Angeles. “In those early days at the Justice Department, on Bobby’s Senate campaign, and later at the RFK Memorial, you’ve always been there with your good judgment, unflappable presence and trademark smile.”

THE MAN WHO DEFENDED PUBLIC ENEMIES BECOMES PUBLIC ENEMY #3

Mr. Guthman’s association with the Kennedys also helped land him on President Nixon’s infamous “enemies list.” (Hey, for that alone, the guy deserves a standing ovation.) They say you can always measure the quality of a man by his enemies, and earning the #3 spot on Nixon’s enemies list speaks for itself, does it not?

Colson’s now-infamous memo described Guthman as “a highly sophisticated hatchetman against us in `68,” and menacingly added, “it is time we give him the message.”

Well, things didn’t work out quite the way Nixon and his ratfuckers had planned. Guthman was instrumental in exposing the Watergate scandal over the next few years, and this time it was Nixon who “got the message” when his presidency ended in disgrace. Score one for Public Enemy #3.

Guthman got on the wrong side of another president’s administration - a Democratic one this time - in 1993 when he expressed his outrage at the Justice Department (yes, the same Justice Dept. where he once served with Kennedy, which had somehow lost its’ moral compass along the way) for launching a military-style raid on the Branch Davidian church at Waco, Texas.

83 innocent men, women, and children died in the flames of a church set ablaze by incendiary devices which, as it turned out, had been employed against them by federal agents. This sort of thing doesn’t happen in my America, Guthman said, and he called attorney general Janet Reno on the carpet publicly for having the unmitigated gall to proclaim herself a devotee’ of Robert Kennedy’s. (He was joined by another brave stalwart of Kennedy’s Justice Dept., Ramsey Clark, who also served as attorney general under President Lyndon B. Johnson). Sorry, Mrs. Reno, they bluntly informed her, but Bobby would never torch a church.

In 1993, Guthman was named to a federal panel reviewing the government’s role in the deadly raid on David Koresh’s “compound” (media-speak for offbeat churches these days). The panel concluded that top officials of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the federal agency that conducted the initial action, had been negligent in overseeing the operation.

“…OF THE GOOD GUYS OF AMERICAN JOURNALISM, ED GUTHMAN IS ON THE FRONT PAGE.”

 - TOM BROKAW

Guthman’s many amazing true life dramas (a Pulitzer waiting to happen for any journalist who might attempt the Herculean task of writing his biography) and accomplishments are far too numerous to list here. We can only give you a few snippets, as we did in his obituary earlier this week, and encourage our readers to do a bit of homework on their own. Take some time to get to know Ed Guthman, and you’ll surely wonder why his name wasn’t a household word. But his name wascertainly well-known around schools of journalism, and that’s where you’ll find, to this very day, another crop of aspiring writers who benefited from Guthman’s mentor-ship.

He taught for many years at USC’s Annenberg School, influencing the minds of countless young reporters, who have since gone out into this dog-eat-dog world armed with the knowledge - and above all else, the empathy  that Guthman always practised in his own craft. He developed in them a thirst for truth, and taught them how to dig until they found it. Then, he inspired in them the courage to publish that truth and stand by it, no matter what the consequences.

Bryce Nelson, a colleague of Guthman’s at both the L.A. Times and at USC, said, “Ed Guthman was a hard-hitting investigative reporter, an editor who believed strongly in the idea of service to his country and his community. … He was a very warm man of great integrity who was totally committed to protecting each American’s rights to freedom of speech and the press guaranteed by the First Amendment.”

Well said, and very true indeed. But of all the tributes to Ed Guthman I’ve heard and read this past week, none can compare to what Tom Brokaw wrote of him a decade ago in his bestselling 1998 book The Greatest Generation, in which Guthman was profiled. Brokaw said: “In any accounting of the good guys of American journalism, Ed Guthman is on the front page…I will always think of him as “Citizen Ed”…”

It seems fitting somehow to conclude this remembrance of Ed Guthman not with my words, or even those of a famous television journalist like Brokaw. Perhaps instead you’d like to read the sentiments of one of those young journalists who rose up, as it were, under Professor Guthman’s wing.

Just this week, I exchanged correspondence with a writer named Michael Stusser, who reads this blog regularly and who posted a comment about Ed Guthman here shortly after his passing. His article about working with Ed (published in Guthman’s old haunt, the Seattle Times), is one of the best tributes to the man I’ve read anywhere. With Mr. Stusser’s kind permission, his original story is reprinted below. Enjoy!

A LIFETIME OF ADVICE, CAREFULLY SCRIPTED WITH A RED PEN

By Michael A. Stusser

Special to The Seattle Times

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Remember Misha Defonseca, the Belgian writer who penned a fake memoir about surviving the Nazi Holocaust as a child in the comfort of a family of wolves? We wrote about it here. Well, she's back in the news, asking a judge to affirm a $32.4 million jury award in her favor. Amazing.

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A nice write-up in the Scranton, PA, blog Electric City Renissance about the late Jason Miller and the play that Tom Flannery and I wrote, Go Irish: The Puragtory Diaries of Jason Miller. Scranton has been in the news a lot lately, what with Joe Biden hailing from the coal country and Sarah "Fahrenheit 451" Palin's flip comment about Scranton and San Francisco at the RNC convention. You can view a clip from the play, starring Robert Hughes as the ghost of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, here. Enjoy.

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Dark days for independent book stores in Seattle, according to the Seattle Times, reflective of national trends:

Seattle is an exceptional reading town, but national trends are not encouraging — even in cities with highly educated populations like Seattle's. Miller, who runs the "Most Literate Cities" survey, recently reviewed five years of survey results, and found what he called a "disturbing" trend: "While Americans are becoming more and more educated in terms of their time spent in school and their education level accomplished," Miller wrote, "they are decreasing in terms of literate behaviors. This is particularly obvious in our lack of support of bookstores and the constantly diminishing circulation of newspapers."

In his five-year review, Miller noted that 43 out of 59 of the cities studied had a higher percentage of high-school graduates than they did five years ago, and 46 of the cities a higher percentage of college graduates. But "not a single city in our survey has more independent bookstores now than five years ago," Miller writes. "Fifty-seven out of 60 cities reported fewer retail booksellers in 2007 than in 2003; in several, the number of booksellers per capita dropped by half of what was reported in 2003."

The entire article can be found here.

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I've fallen into a disquieting habit of late -- since mom passed away six days ago -- of rising from bed between 2:00 and 3:00 AM. No rhyme or reason. Last night, as usual, I tiptoed out of the bedroom and slipped quietly into the living room to have a smoke and entice sleep to return. After a few moments I picked up the cell phone and dialed mom's number, just wanting to hear her narcotized voice on the message greeting. What I get instead is the canned "We're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service."

And so it goes.

This letter was originally written on August 17th, 2007.  It has been edited for continuity and accessibility.

On Oct. 14, 2001, George Bush pulled off the most important and successful hoax of his career.  The next day, Monday, Oct. 15, 2001, the media acted as his accomplice in helping Bush to obscure what he had done the day before.

The headlines said: "Bush Spurns Taliban Offer" (Bellingham Herald); "Bush: There's No Negotiations" (Seattle Times); and "President Rejects Offer By Taliban For Negotiations" (NY Times).

What was the negotiation that Bush rejected?  The inside headline from the New York Times, on page B2 (the second section), explains it a little better.  "Bush Rejects Taliban Offer to Discuss bin Laden Surrender."

The Taliban were offering to turn over bin Laden to a neutral country for trial if Bush would show evidence of his guilt and halt the bombing of Afghanistan.

Bush was offered the chance to have bin Laden imprisoned and brought to trial and he said no.  The capture of bin Laden would have derailed the "War On Terror."  This could not be allowed to happen.

George Bush was never interested in capturing bin Laden.  His real interest, probably under the guidance of Dick Cheney, was to capture the natural gas of Central Asia and Afghanistan and the oil and natural gas of Iraq and Iran.  After all, why should energy companies pay a fair price for other people's oil when they can have the MIMC (military-industrial-media-complex) steal it for them?  (For more on this see "Contract Sport" by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, Feb. 16 & 23, 2004, p.89)

If it seems hard to believe that George Bush would purposely allow bin Laden to escape, consider what else he has done to further that goal.  From the start of the bombing of Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, no special effort was made to cut off bin Laden's escape.  He arrived in the Tora Bora Mountains on the border with Pakistan in December, 2001.  He was blocked on three sides by Afghan allies of the United States, but the side facing Pakistan was left open.

Gary Bentsen , a CIA agent who was in the mountains at the time, says in his book, Jawbreaker, that he requested that Army Rangers be dropped onto the Pakistani side to block bin Laden's escape.  His request was denied.

What about the Pakistani army?  Was their help asked for?  In a press conference on Sept. 15, 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell thanked Pakistan for "their willingness to assist us in whatever might be required in that part of the world."  So where was the Pakistani army when we needed them?  By Dec. 15, bin Laden had escaped into Pakistan.

George Bush and President Musharraf have had almost six years to come up with a plan to deal with the World's Most Wanted Man.  During these years, General Musharraf has been described in the U.S. media as "a key ally in the fight against the Taliban" (Seattle Times, July 7, '07), "considered a close ally by the United States in the war against Terrorism" (NY Times, June 6, '07), "a trusted ally against terrorism" (Washington Times, Aug. 7, '07), and a "key American ally" (Christian Science Monitor, July 23, '07).  Were all these journalists reading from the same press release?

Just lately, the tone may be changing.  A recent IHT editorial said "Pakistan's location... makes it one of America's most important allies" (Aug. 12, '07).  Pakistan's location does make it important but it doesn't make it an ally.

The people of Pakistan may be our allies, but General Musharraf is not.   He is George Bush's ally, an entirely different thing.  Bush and Musharraf have acted as a team since Oct. 14, 2001.  Bush made sure bin Laden escaped and Musharraf has given him shelter.

At the Sept. 15, 2001 press conference with Colin Powell, George Bush said "we will deal with those who harbor them" (terrorists).  True to his word, he has dealt with them.  He has made Pakistan the third largest recipient of U.S. aid.  That is General Musharraf's reward for keeping his end of the deal.  Bush and Musharraf have allowed bin Laden to become Goldstein, the ever-lurking menace in the hills from Orwell's 1984.

This has created the psychological climate necessary for an obscene military budget, the destruction of due process, torture, and all the other perversions of our Constitution that fall under the fraudulent title of "War on Terror."

There is police work, and there is war.  Good police work identifies the guilty and lets the innocent go free.  War finds whole populations guilty by association.  Those without a conscience can accept this.  Most of us cannot accept it but we don't know how to stop it.  Impeachment seems like the best option.

I have Pakistani acquaintances.  They seem like the nicest people in the world.  I don't want to see their families and friends in Pakistan subjected to more injustice through another misguided war.  We cannot achieve justice or freedom through bombing.

I was in the 101^st Airborne Division in Vietnam in 1968.  My brother Ken was in the 4^th Infantry Division in the Central Highlands.  He was badly wounded in a firefight in May 1969.  He went through heroin addiction, a methadone program, a drug free program, alcoholism, sobriety, leukemia in 1988 and then recovery.  He killed himself in 1994.  Just before he died he told me he'd been thinking a lot about Vietnam.

For my brother's sake, I don't want to see any more brothers or sisters or sons or daughters or mothers or fathers killed because of some president's lies.  I don't want to see any more children crying because their parents have just died in a car-bombing or in a precision-guided explosion.  This administration is creating hell on earth and it's past time for them to be removed from office.  George Bush has disgraced our country by surrounding himself with people just like himself; not participants in war, but cheerleaders for war.

As citizens, we have a responsibility to the world to make sure our country uses its power for good.  George Bush talks about defeatism, but I believe democracy is being defeated by his actions.  To impeach him and remove him and his accomplices from office would be one of the greatest victories for democracy that the world has ever seen.

Some citizens may be reluctant to act or to trust their own judgment.  Perhaps a scene from the movie "The Stranger" from 1946 will help.  Edward G. Robinson plays Mr. Wilson, a Nazi hunter who has tracked one of the worst Nazi war criminals to Harper, Connecticut.  The Nazi, Franz Kindler (Orson Wells) is working as a history teacher at the local school and has just married Mary (Loretta Young), the daughter of a Supreme Court Justice.

In order to get her on his side, Wilson shows Mary films of Nazi death camps and describes Kindler's obsession with clocks.  Mary's husband, Charles Rankin, puts all his spare time into working on the clock in the town square.  Mary runs from the room, screaming, "He's not a Nazi!"

Wilson says to Mary's father: "She has the facts now.  But she won't accept them.  They're too horrible for her to acknowledge.  Not so much that Rankin could be Kindler, but that she could ever have given her love to such a creature.  But we have one ally, her subconscious.  It knows what the truth is and is struggling to be heard."

For those of you who have supported George Bush, it's time to face facts.  By lying about war, George Bush has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and he will cause more death until he is stopped.  The Congress and the media need to withdraw all respect from the Bush Administration.  When Bush lied to the American people and caused death, he committed treason.

Treason is an impeachable offence.  He and his accomplices deserve imprisonment, but impeachment would be a good start.  So, let's get started.  The whole world will thank us.

Governor Gregoire assumed the governors office in 2004 under very shaky circumstances. Upwards of 70% of Washingtonians wanted a revote, both partys. Democrat denied and took the office.

Since that time our taxes have steadily increased and I see no equivalent rise in services, at least for Clark County.

We were told that accepting the 9.5 cent tax increase on gas would benefit first King County with them eventually helping foot the bill for projects here. Now that it is time to replace the aging I-5 Bridge, or build a third bridge, we hear we must accept tolls and be stuck with an extension of Portland's Max Line Light Rail.

Even the Seattle Times exposes Christine Gregoire's out of control $8 Billion increase in State spending, leaving us with a projected $2.5 Billion deficit soon.

It would appear to me that the Democrat majority in Olympia just rubber stamps Gregoire's spending and we taxpayers are expected to just continue handing over our hard earned dollars and do without when it comes to our families.

Dino Rossi, rightful winner in the 2004 race, is running again and placing much better in polling than he did last time he won, before the shady recounts. A businessman, Rossi has the ideas and knowedge to turn our state around.

We need Dino Rossi as governor, but he cannot do it alone. We must take Olympia away from the rubber stamp Democrats and elect responsible Republicans that will control spending.

Note that I wrote "responsible" Republicans. The Republicans made some big mistakes by trying to imitate Democrats and it has cost them. Many have been purged from the party and others marginalized. So, check out candidates closely and see if they really are fiscally conservative.

Don't fall for claims of "problem solving" experience as they admit now knowing how to solve our problems.

It is time to send some fresh faces to Olympia with fresh ideas and to return those that fight for our tax dollars to be wisely spent.

Most of all, though, we need a strong, wise and capable candidate like Dino Rossi at the helm to turn Washington State back around and restore the economy we used to have.

"When pigs fly"...is an idiom or a popular saying used to indicate that something will never happen.  So, when will the "Law Enforcement" spin stop on this Sturgis shooting?  No time soon it would seem...

The Seattle Times is reporting that the off-duty police officer who shot Hells Angel member Joseph Patrick McGuire (33, of Imperial Beach, Ca.) at the Loud American Roadhouse in Sturgis was forced to open fire after being attacked and pinned to the floor by up to three members of the outlaw motorcycle gang.

The Rapid City Journal identified the Seattle police officer as Ronald Smith (43, of Seattle, WA). He is assigned to the departments pawnshop unit.  In grand-jury investigation statements he said:

The detective said one Hells Angel member "got in my face" and began an argument.  "I was cold-cocked on the left side of my face by at least one, if not three, Hells Angels,"..."I woke up on the ground pinned against a bar stool by a Hells Angel in a red bandanna,"..."I was receiving fists and feet from the top during this."... "I tried to wriggle free, but didn't have any leverage."..."The Hells Angel in the bandanna tried to grab my gun just as another man was choking me... "I then pulled the handgun from my hip and opened fire."

According to the newspaper, 25 people testified during the seven-hour court hearing.  No arrests have been made and the investigation could continue until the grand jury reconvenes on Aug. 27^th.

Not everything is as tranquil as they would want us to believe...new information has been released on the detective involved in the Sturgis shooting has twice been investigated by the department of Office of Professional Accountability, a civilian police-oversight group, during his 15 years on the force. Both complaints were confirmed by the group.  One investigation stemmed from a verbal argument he got into with a Seahawk fan while working an off-duty assignment at Qwest Field in 2004. He also got into an argument inside a Pierce County restaurant in 2005 with a restaurant employee who was taunting and threatening him and his then-fiancée.  He received a two-day suspension for the incident with the Seahawk fan and a written reprimand for the other incident.

I've received a number of questions about whether it was legal for Smith to have a gun on him in the Loud American Roadhouse, because he was off duty at the time.  According to South Dakota law, people with concealed-weapons permits cannot carry firearms into bars. Police officers are exempt from this rule if they have written permission from the county sheriff, according to the law. However, the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act (a federal law) enacted in 2004 supersedes the state law, allowing off-duty law-enforcement officers to carry weapons anywhere they choose, but it requires that the weapons handler not be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

So let the spin continue as nothing has been reported about sobriety tests conducted after the shooting...

Update:  August 14^th - Seattle PI is reporting that Hells Angel member Joseph Patrick McGuire was arrested Jan. 18, 2007, as part of an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the San Diego Police Department. Police served warrants on two San Diego-area homes that belonged to the president of the Hells Angels' local chapter.  McGuire is the chapter treasurer and was arrested at one of the homes in Pacific Beach, Calif. Police seized a pound and a half of marijuana, in addition to hydrocodone and oxycodone pills, and $5,000 in cash.  The San Diego chapter president and vice president were charged in separate cases in the investigation.  McGuire was released on bond and scheduled for a pre-trial hearing Aug 20 in San Diego County Superior Court, with his trial set for September.  He was charged with possession of marijuana for sale and two counts of illegal possession of narcotics.

Update: September 5th - The Argus Leader is reporting that both men (McGuire (HAMC) and Smith (Iron Pigs)) are charged with alternative counts of aggravated and simple assault.  Smith was also charged with perjury.  In addition, misdemeanor gun charges were also brought against the four other fellow bikers with Smith (also part of the Iron Pigs): Scott Lazalde (Bellingham, WA); Dennis McCoy (Seattle, WA); Erik Pingel (Aurora, CO) and James Rector (Ferndale, WA).

Photo courtesy Flickr.

To increase local awareness and get North Westerners excited about the launch of the Seattle Times' community website, nwsource.com, Attack! Marketing and Promotions sent brand ambassadors out to strategic locations in Seattle over summer 2008. The staff visited local markets, busy commercial areas, and summer fairs dressed in bright orange, branded t-shirts and visors. The street teams passed out the website's discount cards, promotional materials and orange balloons. In total, over 50,000 brochures and discount cards were distributed!

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The first piece was written for the the Seattle Times by Carolyn Poirot. Here's an exerpt:

"Bray says the problem with HFCS is not only that it is sweeter than other forms of sugar, but also that it does not affect appetite. Fructose adds to overeating because it does not trigger chemical messengers that tell the brain the stomach is full and no longer hungry, like food and drinks that contain regular refined sugar do."

Sounds like good stuff, doesn't it?

This second article covers the FDA's decision to allow  food items marked "Natural" to contain HFCS since it too is "natural". Wonder who paid for that decision?

picture courtesy of ybfat101.com. they also informed me that the average american consumes 88 pounds of the stuff a year. as I've said before: "yum".

By Sanjay Bhatt
Seattle Times

I read this story  in The Seattle Times,  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html  about  the farmer in Germany who received new arms. Talk about miraculous! Everything matched as much as possible; the cells, blood types and marrow, etc.  But he'll be under tons of medication that doctors say is sure to cause unpleasant side effects.  A team of 40 doctors took two days to attach the arms.  

Apparently the farmer lost his arms in an accident and had tried several unsuccessful attempts with prosthetics. 

And I thought my life was Hell! I can't imagine how difficult  his life must be and will continue to be.  I pray the surgery is a success.  

And I was reminded of a national survey that I regularly take at http://interactive.zogby.com/.  Often the Zogby survey asks for opinions about events that involve politicians and asks for the participant's political affiliation.  

Yesterday Zogby sent a brand new survey to my mailbox. This time the  questions were different and centered on technology and my political persuasion.    

When I read, "Would you like a chip inserted in your brain to make you more intelligent?" my skin started to crawl. 

And I had a few questions: Could the chip be inserted in my ear? I'm partial to scars. And how well do the chips stay in? I mean, it wouldn't work to have things flying out of my head in the middle of a deep conversation. 

I didn't like the next question any better: "Would you like a chip inserted in your brain that would allow you to speak a foreign language fluently?" 

Well, duh! I thought of this years ago during high school Spanish but I was sure that the curls of my  Gypsy hairstyle would lose their spring.   

I would love to have a chip to make me a better dancer.  When I drank I was Jennifer Lopez but since I quit I can't remember the steps.   Sadly, I will have to pass this experience. Let modern science find another guinea pig.  

Excuse me while I grab my tin foil  hat. Call me paranoid but has anyone ever read a little book called 1984?   It seems that 

complete mind control is just around the bend.  No thank you! I'll stay stupid and unprogrammed!

Just for a moment, pretend we live in a perfect world: You are in control of everything!  You can purchase these chips at 7-11 or Starbucks near the CDs for $9.99 

Just think......you can transform yourself into a sunny optimist with a great singing voice.  For three minutes you can have fame and be seen on television and invited to all the best parties. When you tire of a particular chip, put it to the box trade it with your friend. 

Exactly how would you like your brain programmed?  Post your comments, I'd like to know.

In January 2008, for better or worse,The Seattle Times was at it again.  Just days prior to Letter-of-Intent Day, with Washington coming off a terrible 4-9 campaign, The Times launched an investigative series entitled Victory and Ruins.  It was written by journalists Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry, who unearthed details on criminal and boorish behavior by primarily three former Washington players:  tight end Jerramy Stevens (suspected of rape and multiple legal issues), linebacker Jeremiah Pharms (convicted of shooting a drug dealer during a burglary) and the late safety Curtis Williams (disturbing pattern of domestic violence).     

In an attempt to wrap the series up in a positive manner, The Times concluded with an article on the inspirational story of linebacker Anthony Kelley (Prop 48 case who turned his life around and excelled academically, despite a football culture that reportedly sought to prevent him from doing so).

Said The Seattle Times in their article that opened the series:

"Husky faithful look back wistfully to their last great team:  the 2000 squad, winners of the Rose Bowl, owners of an 11-1 record, ranked no. 3 in the nation.

"`A mystical, magical season," one sportswriter called it at the time.  What happened on the field in 2000 may have been magical.  But what happened off it was not.

"An unprecedented look behind the scene-- based largely on documents unavailable at the time-- reveals a disturbing level of criminal conduct and hooliganism by the players on that team.

"Former coach Rick Neuheisel and athletic director Barbara Hedges accepted most of it, demanding little discipline or accountability from their athletes.  And other community institutions, including prosecutors, police, judges and the media went along.

"Beyond the roses, that was the legacy of the Neuheisel-Hedges era, and the ruins that (current coach Tyrone Willingam) and (former athletic director Todd Turner) inherited in 2004."

The series ignited a firestorm of controversy in the Seattle region as well on the national scene.  For several days it was the talk of radio airwaves, newspaper columns and message boards like that found on Dawgman.com.  Husky football fans felt confusion and outrage over a local newspaper dragging the reputation of a deceased man (Curtis Williams) through the mud, and seemingly trying to undermine the football program again, this time with eight-year old news.  Others felt the exposure served a good purpose by showing how football players are favored institutionally over "ordinary" students and citizens.

Despite the fact that the cited players, coaches and administrators were long gone from the scene, the University of Washington was branded widely (again) as an outlaw program.  A popular national blog even ran the thunderously condemning headline: THE 2000 WASHINGTON HUSKIES WERE HORRIBLE PEOPLE.

As the wrath of Husky fans focused upon The Seattle Times, the series writers' Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry refused all interviews and maintained low profiles.  Seattle Times Senior Executive Editor David Boardman went public to answer questions, and claimed during a radio interview on KJR that he felt "immense pride" over the series.  Boardman's supporters felt he had tied the series up effectively.  Boardman's detractors believed he came off as an arrogant elitist.  

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While this situation raged, I found myself in a highly ironic situation.  I was in the early stages of researching a book about the 2000 Washington Huskies and the late Curtis Williams.  (Former UW coach Rick Neuheisel has recently written a foreword for it and the book will be published in late 2008 or 2009).

From the months of January through May of this year, I interviewed 26 players and 3 coaches off that 2000 Rose Bowl squad.  I also spoke with Curtis Williams' brother and caretaker David Williams, Manu Tuiasosopo, former recruiting coordinator Dick Baird and concluded finally with Seattle Times writer Nick Perry.  Of note, Jerramy Stevens declined to speak with me and I failed to track down Jeramiah Pharms.  Ken Armstrong and David Boardman did not respond to interview requests.  

In each of the player interviews, I made sure to ask about the Times series.  With the exception of former Huskies Kyle Benn and Chad Ward, I am unaware of any players who went public with their thoughts.  

Given that set of circumstances, I felt it noteworthy to compile the players' responses toward Victory and Ruins.  Of note, during a long interview back in February with Marques Tuiasosopo, he declined to speak publicly about the series.    

COMMENTS FROM THE 2000 WASHINGTON HUSKIES

What was your reaction to the Victory and Ruins series?

I was furious, confused and pissed.  It was nothing much that hadn’t already been brought out.  I didn’t understand why they decided to drag one of the best Husky teams in years through the mud.  Obviously, Jerramy has had his problems, that’s no secret.  J.P has had his problems and paid his due.  And Curtis, we knew he had some family trouble in the past.  That was the thing we loved seeing about him, was that after being given an ultimatum of being kicked off the team, he grew up and kept his nose out of a lot of stuff.  He was sixteen credits away from graduation.  Even regarding the things they said about him that were true, it should be considered that Curtis paid the ultimate price.  We were really pissed that they dragged his name through the mud. 

We were also pissed that they tried to tie in the other 115 guys on the team to that.  Especially in putting Marques Tuiasosopo’s picture on the cover.  Tui is the most stand-up guy I know, hands down.  They painted a picture of a program gone wild.  Of hoodlums and thugs, and just free reign to do whatever we wished, and it wasn’t like that.  You paid a price if you messed up, for the most part.  

Kyle Benn, offensive lineman

My response to The Seattle Times series is this:  That 2000 season was the most special year I’ve had as a football player.  The guys came from all kinds of different backgrounds and had different issues.  Yet we all came together from the tragedy of Curtis Williams and every game was a fight.  We weren’t the most talented team that stepped on the field every week, but our guys were going to fight and do whatever it took to win games.   It’s unfortunate that we had a lot of guys that got in trouble or had unfortunate events that happened in the media.  But for that year and that moment, there was none of that.  There was no bickering or fighting, everybody was friendly.  There was no racial divide, no economic divide.  We had a true passion for trying to win.  What happened to those guys before and after should not taint what happened in that 2000 season.  Well over 90% of that team was comprised of really good guys.  I was happy to be a part of that team and I haven’t been a part of anything like that since.

Larry Tripplett, defensive lineman

I didn’t like how they tried to repackage old information to make us look bad, including Curtis since he has passed.  Why would a local paper want to dig up information that was eight years old and drag the team through the mud like that, I don’t know.  They made us look like a bunch of criminals.  And they made Curtis look like a raging monster.  But he was a good friend and one of the nicest guys you would ever want to meet. 

Chad Ward, offensive lineman

For me, growing up and living in the South in SEC territory, how does a local newspaper throw their local university under the bus more than the Seattle Times?  If that kind of thing had happened in the SEC, that paper would probably lose their media credentials.  And it’s not just what they wrote, but when they wrote it.  And the main thing was that the story was the story. 

It’s sad that the local newspaper would try to maliciously attack the local team that won a Rose Bowl eight years ago…  Curtis Williams gave his life to Washington football.  If that’s not punishment enough, I don’t know what is.  It makes me sick to think that people would write about that for their own benefit.

John Anderson, placekicker

I found it highly disturbing that the local newspaper would try denigrate the memory of Curtis Williams and of the 2000 Rose Bowl team.

Elliot Silvers, offensive lineman

For the guys who messed up, they paid their dues.  Jerramy has paid his dues.  His career is looked at as a failure.  And the animosity that people hold toward him is incredible.  J.P. (Jeremiah Pharms) should be in the NFL right now and is not because of what happened.  Curtis paid the ultimate price.  For the Seattle Times to do what they did to him, and he’s not even here to defend himself!

The way I see that series is that somebody was trying to take away something that was really damn good.  That’s what’s killing me.  Football is a game, and now we’re getting personal and turning it into a soap opera?

The new president of the University of Washington (Mark Emmert) came out with a statement that the guys on our team weren’t very good guys, but Coach Willingham is cleaning things up now.  That pissed me off.  That is the president of my alma mater.  He hasn’t even met me.  He hasn’t met the guys on the team.  This is the president of the university reading into things that were said in a newspaper article about the group of thugs on our team and feeling he can pre-judge us.

Wilbur Hooks, wide receiver

 I was shocked.  Teammates were calling each other grumbling back and forth.  That 2000 season was one of the best things that has happened to U-Dub football in recent years and they tore it apart.  They didn’t get both parts of the story.  It was a dishonor to the entire team.  We weren’t a bad group of guys.

–Braxton Cleman, running back

 That whole series was slanted.  They tried to make the entire team sound like ruffians and thugs.  Don’t get me wrong, we had a few guys who did stupid things and had their indiscretions.  At the same time, we had guys that did community service and spoke at elementary schools and high schools.  They say that in journalism, you’re supposed to be objective.  I could understand that if they wrote about Jerramy Stevens and his troubles, and then wrote about Marques Tuiasosopo and all the good things he did on and off the field, and then let people form an opinion.  Or if they wanted to write about Jeremiah Pharms, and then write about good people like Pat Reddick who came back after two major knee surgeries.   If The Seattle Times had written equally like that, then I wouldn’t be as angry about it.  But they made it seem like we were Miami in the early 1990s.  Just a bunch of guys running amok in Seattle; not going to class, taking drugs, raping women and raising hell.

Derrell Daniels, linebacker

I didn’t understand the timing of it or the relevance of it.  Eight years ago seemed a little ridiculous.  The deal with Curtis was completely inappropriate.  The other guys are here to defend themselves.  Curtis isn’t here to do so.  They were stomping on his grave.

Todd Elstrom, wide receiver

 I was quite disgusted with that.  To bring these things up almost a decade later is ridiculous.  The headline tarnishing Curtis as a wanted felon, as if that’s all he was.  Especially when Curtis isn’t here to defend himself doesn’t sit well with me at all.

Willie Hurst, running back

My reaction was why?  It was a great season for the whole team and staff, and they want to bring focus on three players and shed darkness on what was a great season.  I knew that Curtis had been involved with some legal troubles, but I didn’t know the details that were in that article.  By the time I met him, he was turning things around at that point.  My first year, he was getting his grades back, and the year after that he was back in the mix.  Nobody played harder than Curtis. 

Omare Lowe, cornerback

In writing about Jerramy and Jeremiah, they picked the right ones to do a bad story on.  Jeremiah was a different kind of man; he was a maniac.  Don’t get me wrong, he was a good brother.  But I’ve never seen anyone come with a reckless abandon like that man.  I saw him clothesline (teammate) Matthias Wilson with one arm.  This man was a beast.  He would squat down before practice and piss all over himself and just get DIRTY.  I’ve never seen a man who played in that kind of (psychological) place.  I loved him on the football field, because he would always have my back.  Off the field, Jeremiah was Jeremiah.  People always said he was a bit off-kilter.  I didn’t know he was caught up in bad stuff, but on occasion people would say things.

I don’t like to judge people, but when Jerramy arrived at Washington he had some case from high school where he hit somebody with a baseball bat or something.  He had to get out of jail just to come to Washington.  So that’s how he started his journey right away.  I don’t have much bad to say about him because he’s my guy.  But decisions cost us.  There were times were we would say DAMN! COME ON JERRAMY.  COME ON BABY.  If you get into trouble once or twice, OK.  Learn from it.  But when it’s four, five, six times, well then it’s HEY MAN I’M TRIPPIN’.  Even when he was in the NFL and got into trouble, I would think “You’ve got a blessing there baby, don’t mess it off.”

Hakim Akbar, Safety

It wasn’t just talking about the football season, it was talking in detail about people’s backgrounds and history and things that I didn’t know could be released.  I wasn’t upset at first, I was just trying to figure out what the paper was trying to do.  I’m not sure why they ran those stories.  Newspapers are stretched thin and closing down or having cut-backs.  Writers are doing a lot to stay ahead of the internet, because everyone is getting their information on line and not reading the paper itself…  But the sad part about was the need to use people’s lives.

Jafar Williams, linebacker

I was a little offended that they decided to pick on the two dead kids (Williams and Anthony Vontoure).  It was an attitude of “Let’s pick on the guy whose marriage was bad like many are, and let’s pick on the guy with such severe emotional problems that he couldn’t function.”  The only thing that kept Anthony Vontoure from being homeless was football.  But they decided to denigrate his memory too.

I thought it was typical of a lot of the mainstream media in the country, where it’s sensationalized in order to sell newspapers and draw attention.  I didn’t read all the articles.  After I read the article on Curtis I stopped participating in that whole thing.  I thought the whole thing was way out of line.

I had known Curtis since he was a junior at high school.  I didn’t recruit him while at Colorado (with Rick Neuheisel).  When we got to Washington, I lobbied to get Curtis from running back to safety, because I thought he could be a great safety, which he was.  Curtis was a young guy who had different things going on with his life that weren’t always positive.  But he was an engaging guy, popular with his teammates, and a natural leader.  Had he been able to continue with his life away from a wheelchair, or even in a wheelchair, I think he would have been an extremely productive post-graduate adult.  That’s my take of him.  I’ve got a picture of him in my office here (at the University of Montana), and another one of him at my home.  To me, he was pretty inspirational.  He was able to climb out of the negative, and turn a lot of things into great positives.  I really wish that his life could have extended because I think he would have been a real productive person.

It’s still emotional for me to think about, because it was so devastating. When I sit and think about it, it still hurts me.  When I saw Curtis go down (vs. Stanford 10/28/2000), I knew he was hurt bad because he didn’t move.  The guys out there trying to tend to him knew it was bad.  I remember that I had tears streaming down my face the whole fourth quarter. 

Bobby Hauck (former UW assistant & current Head Coach at Montana)

It was particularly upsetting to read what they wrote about Curtis.  He obviously didn’t have a chance to give his side.  He did so many great things for the university and he was such a great guy, a lot of people’s last memories of Curtis are going to be what they read in The Seattle Times.  That wasn’t the person that we knew and loved.

 Paul Arnold, Running Back

What were they trying to accomplish with those articles?  And why two days before signing day?  Two of the guys were dead, and couldn’t defend themselves.  They’re not here anymore.  Let them rest in peace.  When the reporter called me, I ended the interview halfway through.  I could see where it was headed.  I felt like it discredited a lot of the stuff we had accomplished.  Like we were the Wild Wild West and tearing up the City of Seattle.

Dom Daste, offensive lineman

We were all clustered together with some negative aspects of that year.  The Seattle Times whitewashed what we accomplished by putting the entire team in a negative light, which was super frustrating.  It upset most of us.

I called Marques (Tuiasosopo) and said, “Wait a second!  How do you feel having your picture front and center in that article?”  Because obviously, Marques was the landmark for that whole season due to his contributions.  When people think about the 2000 Washington Huskies, they usually think of him.  Marques being Marques, he is really even-keeled.  His reaction was way less than mine.  Of course, mine may have been an over-reaction.  He was like, “I’m a little upset, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Pat Conniff, fullback

I was shocked and upset.   I had mixed emotions.  I also understand that reporters’ jobs are to investigate and print material that people will read—they certainly accomplished that.  But I’m not sure what their goal was.  “Hey, if you want to have a winning team, this is what you will encounter.”  They also went overboard, especially since most of this stuff happened eight years ago.  And there are always two sides to every story…  If you take 100 college students, you’re going to have a few bad apples.  That’s just human nature.

My strongest emotion in reading that was probably relief that they didn’t use my name in those articles.  I have a wife and three kids now, and I’m a commercial real estate broker.  I don’t need to be associated with those types of articles.

Spencer Marona, defensive lineman

It was a shocking article.  I was thinking “Why now?  It’s been eight years.”

Ken Walker, fullback

If these things are happening, then they need to be brought up.  My take on it is are we bringing up things just to smear everybody or are we going to make some sort of change?  It would have been better if The Seattle Times had brought these things up it would be better while they’re going on, so the people involved can be helped to make change.  But when its years later, after people have passed away or moved on, it doesn’t affect them so much as make the University of Washington look like hell.  I don’t know what their point was.  The only constructive question to ask is, “What do we do as a community or society to make sure that this doesn’t happen anymore?”

(After being informed that David Boardman seemed to imply he had endorsed their series): 

No, I wasn’t endorsing what the Seattle Times did at all.  I didn’t hear what Boardman said.  I wrote my response to them and never went back (to The Seattle Times website).  I don’t have a problem with people bringing things forward for the right reason.  But just to smear people or sell newspapers– what are you doing it for?

I think Curt did some bad things while he was there, but he was not a bad person.  His way to deal with things was to be physical.  But if anybody ever met Curt outside of football and away from Michelle, you would think he was a great kid.  He had a big intoxicating smile, and he was funny and fun, and would stop and help you with any problem you had. 

But early on he got into that bad situation of getting Michelle pregnant and getting married at 17 years of age as soon as he got up to Washington.  There’s no way in hell any seventeen year old should be getting married.  He didn’t know how to handle the bad situations, and his reaction was partially taught on the field, because in football if you’re hit you then hit back.  Curt got into bad situations and I don’t condone how he handled it at all.  I just wish I could have been closer to him at that point because I think I had more influence on him than most other people.     

David Williams (Curtis Williams’ brother and caretaker after his paralysis)

I was proud of the Anthony Kelley story.  Somebody who was a good guy and had succeeded despite the odds, to put it bluntly.  (Overall) we knew we were taking on a sacred cow, and so we were expecting a pretty strong reaction, and we got that.  The reaction on Bob Condotta’s blog was negative.  What was heartening was that on the main part of the website, there were negative comments, but other people jumped in and argued in the series’ favor as they could see what we were trying to do in publishing the series.  Nationally, for people that lived outside the Seattle region, there was a lot of positive reaction.  They didn’t have the emotional investment in rooting (for the team).

That was a tough one in writing about Curtis Williams and Norm Maleng.  They were two icons in the Seattle area that were and are still revered in the Seattle area.  There was a lot of heartache about what we should do with that story.  We finally decided that it was important to have that story out there to show what was going behind the scenes.  I know it was hard for a lot of people to read, because (Curtis) was such an icon and popular in Seattle sports. 

Nick Perry, co-writer of Victory and Ruins

I did feel like The Seattle Times used me.  I didn’t understand my place in this whole thing, other than I had succeeded academically.  I think they threw me in there because they couldn’t end the series on a bad note like that.  If I had been white, I wouldn’t have been featured.  Because it’s not a crazy story to hear of a white person studying abroad and doing something like that.  But to hear from a black guy that was one of the first Prop 48 cases accepted at the university, I was the token black guy.  That was good PR for The Times. 

When I realized how big this story was in the beginning, with (bad comments about) Neuheisel and Barbara Hedges, it became clear that I was the token black guy at the university.  We’ve got all these bad stories going on, but HEY!  WE’VE GOT A BLACK FOOTBALL PLAYER DOING WELL.  THIS IS SOME BIG SHIT HERE!  This isn’t a white tennis player.  He’s a black football player with a poor academic history coming from a broken home and issues including ADD.  I was the poster child for all minorities in the standard.  I was held as the exception to the rule.  It was, “Nobody can do what you did AK!  Nobody can do this.”

I agreed with parts of the article.  But on this level, The Seattle Times missed the whole point.  They were selfish in terms of what their act was toward these athletes.  They didn’t pay any respect to that.  I really can’t even say what their purpose was.

Anthony Kelley, linebacker

The Seattle Times feels it’s their sworn duty to keep these institutions honest.  At the same time their whole series ends up being institutional racism because they didn’t feature a single white kid in those main articles.  Lord knows, there were enough of them that got in trouble on that team.  But the Seattle Times depicted black athletes out of control.  These kids made mistakes, and alcohol was involved in a lot of these mistakes.  Even still, progress was being made.  They wanted to make it sound like the Lambright and Neuheisel staffs were conspiring with the law to keep these kids eligible, and that’s simply not true.  They want to depict college football coaches as monsters who are exploiting the black athlete.  And yet they are only going to point out the black kids that got in trouble? 

The Seattle Times opened up with a picture of Tui on the front page because they know how popular he is.  They used him.  And they knew exactly what they were doing.  They got dumb fucks like you and me all pissed off.  They never talked to any of the coaches that dealt with those kids.  They never talked to me, and I recruited those featured kids that got in trouble. 

There were so many good kids on that team, and they were all smeared by The Seattle Times. 

I still don’t know the purpose of it.  It elicited tremendous anxieties on my part.  I know how hard Coach Lambright and Coach Neuheisel worked with those kids. How our counselors Bruce Harrell and Gertrude Peoples busted their ass to help those kids survive.  But you don’t hear that side.  That’s not what The Times wanted to come across.   It was an indictment of the terrible University of Washington football team…  I mean, what the fuck purpose did it serve?  It was all over the nation and it was all dug-up shit. 

That team accomplished a tremendous thing that year in winning the Rose Bowl.  A big part of that was Curtis Williams.

And I know that David Boardman had a hard-on for me.  He was complaining about me during his radio interviews.  He didn’t like that fact that I would write or say something (on Dawgman.com and KJR-AM) that would challenge his paper.  All he knows is that he created a big stir and pissed everybody off.  Fuck him.

Dick Baird, former UW recruiting coordinator

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After all, among the 19 largest circulation metro dailies, we only found seven papers that welcomed bloggers — Denver, Dallas, Houston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Phoenix, and Cleveland (hmmm, no east or west coast papers among that group….). It HAD to get better, right?

Wrong.

Sad to say, local bloggers are no more likely to be integrated into daily newspaper websites as you move down to papers below 400,000 circulation.

Of the next 15 largest metro newspapers (numbers 20-34), only five integrate local bloggers (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Portland Oregonian, Indianapolis Star, Orlando Sentinel and San Antonio Express-News).

So, as editors wave goodbye to more and more laid-off, right-sized, bought-out staffers, those editors remain as incapable as “Blind Pew” of seeing the rich content being created all around them. As the old proverb goes, “God protects fools, children and drunkards,” but probably not purblind editors and the newspapers they work for.

THE SECOND TEN “BLIND PEWS” OF AMERICAN NEWSPAPERING
Of the top circulation newspapers in the U.S., these are numbers 11-20 that have chosen to ignore the existence of top-quality bloggers in their midst. (See my Top Ten list here.)

11.    The St. Petersburg Times: Bloggers are about as visible as the Devil Rays in the playoffs (but, giving the devil his due: they do have a cute and largely ignored itsyourtimes.com site where the proletariat can play and not sully the rep of the Times).
12.    Seattle Times: The fog (physical and intellectual) at the Times must be intense because they can’t see what their JOA partner, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, is doing right under their noses (more than 200 local bloggers!)
13.    St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Meet Me in St. Louis? Not if you’re a blogger looking to break into print or the paper’s website.
14. Milwaukee Post-Sentinel: Laverne and Shirley would feel completely at home; it’s like nothing has changed since their sit-com went off the air in ’83. No radical stuff like reader blogs in this newspaper. Nosiree.
15. The Baltimore Sun: If Edgar Allan Poe were a local blogger today, he wouldn’t stand a chance of getting into the Sun, unless he wanted to share a cute picture of his cat or dog or his wedding (but he married his cousin, so the editors probably would have nixed it….).
16.   The Kansas City Star: The “Show Me” state’s junior metro daily doesn’t show squat when it comes to community involvement, unless you count their two specialty pubs  — Ink (a terrific alt-paper mimic) and Mom2Mom — both of which are crawling with a delightful mix of serious and silly local blogs.
17.    The Columbus Dispatch: Whoa, I KNOW websites didn’t exist in the 60s, but this one sure looks like it did … and it hasn’t changed since. But, give them credit, they DO know there weren’t any bloggers in the 60s, so they don’t have any now, either!
18.    Miami Herald: Crockett and Tubbs were the last New Wave to hit Miami. So far this month, the Herald’s sterile website has attracted readers to post in a mere 12 of 31 reader forums! Some "most recent posts" were in JANUARY! Would bloggers want to be here even if they were invited?
19.    Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Pittsburgh will apparently see another World Series Championship (last one was 1979) before they see bloggers in the 222-year-old newspaper.
20.    Orange County Register: No local bloggers. No surprise. There’s no one left in the newsroom after four rounds of layoffs beginning in 2006. Circulation is also at an all-time low with the paper dropping from third largest in California to fifth. All the more reason to welcome local content creators into the fold.

NEXT POST: The best U.S. newspapers in the use of top-quality local bloggers: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Portland Oregonian, and the Indianapolis Star (I’ve already heaped praise on the very best: The Houston Chronicle). I’ll also look at the local blogger success of the Kansas City Star’s specialty pubs (Ink and Mom2Mom)

New: CBC News video:

[wpvideo ss2IeNQU]

New: Cops seek help in solving missing feet mystery (CTV Video)

New: Pictures of all 5 shoes (in post below)

New: Cororner's findings, DNA analysis yields more clues in feet mystery (pdf)

New: Transcript of opening remarks from investigators.

New: CTV raw (UNEDITED) VIDEO of the news conference

Part 1 (runs 8:12)
Part 2 (runs 15:28 )

(July 10) Canada's CTV is reporting that two of five human feet that have washed ashore in the Strait of Georgia over the past year are from the same man.

Not surprisingly, several stories about today's news conference are now appearing on the Internet.  Here's an excerpt from a report published on the Toronto Star's Web site:

Although, initially, all the feet found were believed to be male, police now say that one of the feet belonged to a woman.

Constable Annie Linteau said there is no evidence that the feet were severed.

And here's an excerpt from the CTV report:

Appearing at a news conference, RCMP Const. Annie Linteau said there is no evidence of trauma or tool markings to suggest the feet were severed.

"It appears it's a natural process of decomposition," she said, adding, "We have to be aware these still could be homicide victims."

This distinction regarding the word "severed" is important.

I've refrained from using it in my stories about this case because it seems to me that "severed"--in its popular usage--strongly suggests that someone had cut the feet from the bodies.

After reading KOMO-TV's July 9 headline about this case on komonews.com, I felt compelled to revisit the definition of sever. KOMO's headline read, Retracing the steps of the severed feet.

(note:  I've just noticed KOMO also uses "severed" in its headline concerning today's news conference, Police: Two of Canada's severed feet from same person)

KOMO's headlines are deserving of scrutiny given this afternoon's declarative sentence from the Toronto Star: "Constable Annie Linteau said there is no evidence that the feet were severed."

KOMO isn't alone, at the very moment Constable Linteau firmly states that there is no evidence that any of the feet were severed, CTV put the the following words over at the bottom of the video:  Update on B.C. severed feet investigation (the headline for this story on CTV's Web site opts for the word "detached": RCMP update the detached feet case.

When I went to dictionary.com this morning, I found 6 definitions for "sever", including:

1.  to separate (a part) from the whole, as by cutting or the like, and

2.  to divide into parts, esp. forcibly; cleave.

Loosely, I felt "severed" worked in this case.  But in the popular use of the word, especially as it implies some sort of cutting, I don't think it's the best word here.  One could argue that to do so is even misleading; especially in light of information that came from today's news conference.

I worked in TV news for 20-years, and I can almost hear the argument in a newsroom for using "severed" (someone has no doubt quipped that the "sexiness" of the word gives the story "more legs").

In previous media reports that have addressed "theories" for the mystery feet, investigators and scientists have stated that the most likely explanation for the feet in this case is the natural underwater "decomposition" of bodies.

In its excellent June 23 report, 5 feet, few clues make 1 big B.C. mystery, the Seattle Times addressed several possible explanations for the feet, including:

The feet are the result of the natural decomposition of people who have drowned or gone missing in the Strait.

Pro: This theory is most favored by experts, who say there is no evidence of foul play.

Con: The number of feet found in a short time — without any accompanying body parts — makes for an incredible coincidence.

All of this hardly sounds like someone's going around cutting feet off of people (living or dead).

While it's still possible, the experts have suggested it is the less likely explanation for this case.

Even if the decomposition theory turns out to be correct, foul-play could be involved. Afterall, how did these people die (if we are to assume they are dead)?

And if, in fact, the entirety of the bodies were/are in the Strait of Georgia, how did they end up there?

###

Previous posts on Mystery Feet:

July 9:     Breaking News: Police to hold news conference about human feet mystery
June 28:  Pig video lends insight into B.C. human feet mystery
June 23:  Truth yet to surface in human feet mystery

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