Simple Kind of Man lyrics by Lynyrd Skynyrd

Simple Kind Of Man

Mama told me, when I was young
Come sit beside me, my only son
And listen closely, to what I say.
And if you do this
It will help you some sunny day.
Ohh take your time... Don’t live too fast,
Troubles will come, and they will pass.
Go find a woman and you’ll find love,
And don’t forget son,
There is someone up above.

(Chorus)
And be a simple kind of man.
And maybe some day you’ll love and understand.
Baby be a simple kind of man.
Won’t you do this for me son,
If you can?

Forget your lust for the rich man’s gold
All that you need is in your soul,
And you can do this if you try.
All that I want for you my son,
Is to be satisfied.
(Chorus)
Boy, don’t you worry... you’ll find yourself.
Follow you heart and nothing else.
And you can do this if you try.
All I want for you my son,
Is to be satisfied.

As proof that some people thought the Iraq invasion was wrong from the start, I give you this column, which I wrote in the Register in MARCH 2003, just after we bombed Baghdad.



War is more than
a dramatic series
for the airwaves
The imminent war is having a profound effect on radio and television content, as it will in the coming weeks and months. Anything that can halt the weapons of mass distraction known as “Meet My Folks” and “Married by America” can’t be all bad, I suppose.
Then again, we know this drill all too well: Regular series will be displaced and/or interrupted; cable news networks will see ratings jump, correspondents will make names for themselves, and television will ratchet up the technology and hyperbole of war coverage to inform and impress and sicken viewers.
War should be sickening, actually. But too many broadcast and cable outlets have been treating its coming like a tasty meal. “Dateline NBC” did a solid job Tuesday night on Iraq stories, but we seem to be on the verge of another YEAR of breathless “Dateline” stories about this topic and no one needs that.
Sick, too, are those who fear the Bush administration policies more than fear itself. They increasingly feel like aliens in a strange land.
It’s not just the determination to wage war, evident since September. But the airwaves are full of harsh sounds and sights that illuminate how much freedom and hope was lost on Sept. 11, 2001. Forget the Dixie Chicks thing: How about the instant vilification of anyone who doesn’t agree with war? The cure (a police state) will become worse than the disease (terror).
The United Nations has blown its chance to be relevant in today’s brave new world, say hawks. Uh-huh. If you don’t agree with us, you’re irrelevant.
On Fox News Channel Tuesday morning, bubbly hosts joined a guest from a conservative magazine in gleefully mocking anyone who didn’t totally support the war call by President Bush. It was a pep rally. Tuesday and Wednesday a retired military colonel excitedly used a graphics device to point out Iraqi airfield targets on a satellite image. He sounded like John Madden before a big game.
A mix of opinions was heard on CNN, meanwhile, and C-SPAN actually gave voice to callers who felt this war would be catastrophic now and in the future. Liberal traitors?
The radio shows, meanwhile, took a more serious informational tone than usual, and were usually careful to give the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt. Don Imus on WFAN brought out as much information and analysis in his varied interviews as any national news anchor. Moderately conservative Ray Dunaway and Diane Smith worked similar turf on WTIC.
But a rare liberal voice on AM radio, Colin McEnroe, was sparing no punches in his Tuesday afternoon show on WTIC with Bruce Stevens.
While Paul Pacelli on WELI was exploring domestic-terrorism fears during war, McEnroe was taking Bush to task for his administration’s inaction on the Palestinian issue and policies harmful to civil rights, the environment, the spiraling federal deficit and relations with Russia and China.
“I still regard him (Bush) as a horrific president on virtually every level,” said McEnroe, who said fear-mongering “was one of the ways they run this country.” (Later he interviewed Elie Wiesel, who is for taking out Saddam.)
The war will be brought home even faster this time, via reporters “embedded” in fighting units. Satellite phones and high-tech cameras should take TV viewers to scenes of death and destruction. Death in real time.
You get the feeling that certain business elements (some cable channels?) have been cheering on this conflict for months. Sad fact: Some people in this world profit from war and a world in near-chaos. Bitter Democrats say that describes most Republicans today.
CBS and ESPN certainly don’t care for the timing of this war, with NCAA tournament coverage beginning today for the men and Saturday for the women. Games could be interrupted, shifted to other networks or ignored during breaking news. NBC said it would move its PGA coverage this weekend to CNBC.
No matter. The normal throes of March madness have been joined by another madness and another “reality TV” this week.
Spring fever was put on hold Wednesday night at 8:07 p.m. _ 48 hours after the president’s ultimatum speech. It is time to support the brave troops who have been sent into harm’s way. As we view the terrifying coverage of missile strikes and battles to oust Saddam Hussein, we will withhold judgment on the price of “pre-emptive defensive attacks” that may galvanize the ignorant masses who hate us.
One of history’s biggest gambles will pay off in the short run if Hussein flees before bombs level Iraq. And yet, an invasion is promised either way, to find the weapons. Already we pine for the sports version of March Madness.
Contact Joe Amarante at jamarante@ctcentral.com.

Wedding

My daughter was maried last weekend and it went very well. Much of it is a blur, but it was very meaningful to us. And I took a picture with my entire wedding party from 29 years ago. Much to feel blessed about. Pictured here (from a few weeks ago) are two old pals who were in my wedding party. Now we look like stand-ins on the set of "The Godfather." But we were handsome back then. Jack and Steve are hilarious most of the time. Especially when they're putting me in my place. (Not sure where that place is, but I know I'm there often.) Three very bad golfers, by the way. Oh, and Jack points out that Steve, left, looks like he has a Hitler mustache here (even though Steve shaved off his mustache years ago). Hovering over coldcuts: What's better than that?

RIP Sox

One of the things we do in this blog is to carry on a running "discussion" with Pat Ferrucci's Blog Like An Egyptian journal (see nhregister.com and go to it). Actually the Yankees did too well for me to gloat today (5 straight vs. the Sox? Are you kidding? The curse is back.) so I will skip down to something else Pat said in his blog, based on his travels. (And it's a very funny section on Philadelphia, too). I'm glad he had a couple of cheese steaks in Philly, but he didn't say if it was at Pat's or Geno's! You would think Pat would go to Pat's... I remarked in a previous blog entry that Pat's Sox haven't done well since he insulted Bernie Williams; now he's hammering Willie Randolph for being a bad manager. Sounds like Yul Brenner in "The 10 Commandments," inviting another plague upon the Egyptiansox. "And then the Redsox Sea parted, and the Damonites crossed into the Promised Land..." Speaking of coaching, I heard John Sterling and Susan Waldman talking about the Yankees coaching, and I think that's a big reason the Yankees have hung in there and hit another gear: They're loaded with good coaches: Bowa, Mattingly, etc. who are really getting it done. Hey, Theo, maybe you can hire one or two of them next year!

Maminta interview

Here is the extended-edition (like a movie on DVD!) interview with WTNH anchor Jocelyn Maminta.


Jocelyn Maminta was born in the Phillipines and came here at age 6. Her doctor father came to America for opportunity. It was either United States or New Zealand, she said. Grew up understanding Tagalog language.
On her support for certain causes as a volunteer:
"When it comes to children’s issues, those issues always speak to my heart." Has to juggle those activities with raising a 12- and 5-year-old.
She was a political science major. "First three years I was pre-med and then I switched because I realized it was really not for me. My dad is a doctor and he thought all seven of his children should be doctors. I prepared for that all through middle school, high school. I took all the tough courses, science classes where I grew up in St. Louis, Mo., He did get some of them to become doctors, three, and one sister is a nurse. My mother is a nurse, too."
She took a few courses in journalism, but really didn’t get into that until later. After graduation went to Washington, D.C., to use her poly-sci training and got a job as assistant to Ursula Mees, wife of former Attorney Gen. Edwin Mees. "Now they’re my godparents."
"I love sports and decided I wanted to get into sportscasting." She got her first break covering Friday night football for a TV station in northern Virginia. After that she landed a paid internship at WUSA-TV in Washington that was designed to encourage minorities to get broadcasting jobs. Shadowed reporters for a year at that top 10 market station.
Did an on-air story about a guy on a hunger strike about homelessness, decided she liked it and did more stories (that didn’t air) for a demo tape that she was used to land another TV job in news (which she felt had more impact on people’s lives than sports).
"I did what you’re supposed to do (in TV) High Point, N.C., Buffalo, WTNH, Milwaukee (for a higher-profile anchor job), Lubbock, Texas (her husband’s job necessitated that move) and back to New Haven.
Her husband is Gary Doyens, who is a development guy at CPTV.
Worked mornings at WTNH, evenings in Milwaukee.
"In the news division, you really do make a difference in someone’s life. It could be that one person but... you can change that one person."
"When I came back to New Haven, people said ‘Welcome back, we missed you.’ It was amazing. I couldn’t believe people still remembered me. But it was nice that they did. In Connecticut, when they love somebody, they truly love that person. They really welcome that person into their home. They know what they like, right?"
In coming back to New Haven in 2002, Maminta decided that this was going to be a long-term move. She had just given birth to daughter Campbell in 2001.
"I only wanted to make one more move. I have a young family, and I wanted to have roots somewhere and I felt Connecticut was the place to be. I loved living here when I was first here."
"I just felt that God was telling me to be here. We had lost Caroline when we moved to Milwaukee in 1997, and so when everything came together to come back to Connecticut, it was almost as if God was saying to me, ‘You need to go back to Connecticut; this is where you need to be.’ And I had just had Campbell so it was almost full circle for me."
The hospitals’ neo-natal intensive care units are wide open, Maminta notes, "and these tiny little miracles are trying to survive. They’re fighting for their lives... they just came out too soon."
Caroline was at 30 weeks when born but had development issues that limited her weight to under two pounds."It was very traumatic for me, as well, because my placenta abrupted in a grocery store (in East Haven). I started bleeding heavily. I had just been, two days before, diagnosed with toximia. My parents were with me and rushed me to the hospital emergency room... It was horrible, probably the worst thing I’ve ever had to experience in my life.
"Doctors worked very hard to keep Caroline inside but you couldn’t stop her. They did an emergency Caesarian."
Low-weight babies have a number of health issues to deal with, she notes, which was true with Caroline. And yet, "She was doing really well for about a month, and then she developed NEC (necrotizing enterocolitis); her intestines weren’t developing well, were perforated and then infection set in. So they had emergency surgery and tried to repair her intestines and she just didn’t make it. She was in there two months and a day.
"We weren’t prepared for this. When my doctors told me about it, I was in this cold, sterile breastfeeding room in the unit. I had no idea what they were teling me. I was so numb. It was almost like an out-of-body experience. I could hear them but... They were saying she’s in serious trouble and she may not make it. They were being very tactful... and I said, ‘Are you trying to tell me my baby might die?’ I had to basically ask them bluntly because I want to know the truth. And she made it through that surgery and was with us a few more weeks after that. She fought hard, she really did."
Months after her death, "we wanted to really do something for the unit. The doctors and the nurses, those people are special people who work in that unit. We knew we received the best care possible. When we walked out of Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital that morning, we knew the doctors had done all they could. ... And we wanted to do something for families who follow in our footsteps. So it was a few months later... when we came up with this idea that, because of the fact that when Caroline was dying in our arms, they put up this partition. And that was all that was shielding us from everyone else. Sure the other parents were asked to leave the room but all we had was that cloth partition in the middle of all these babies trying to survive."
With one of the Caroline’s Rooms, "it’s like a living room, a safe haven for families where they can go and talk to their doctors in private, where they can perhaps hold that baby for the first time and maybe the last time. It could be the place where the baby is baptized. In this room, if it is perhaps that moment where we know the baby is no longer going to be living, grandparents and parents and uncles, everybody can come and see the baby in private. And that’s what it’s all about, giving families that dignity, that privacy that you need. When you’re in that neonatal intenstive care unit, it’s such a roller-coaster ride emotionally, and you need a safe haven."
The first C.R. opened at YN-H, three followed in Texas and the fifth was opened in June at the Children’s Medical Center at Hartford Hospital. There are plans to open more, one at the Columbia Medical Center in Roanoke, Va., and another at Danbury Hospital, and then other places throughout the country.
Through carolinesroom.org and the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, Maminta and Doyens are hoping to raise awareness and fund this work for more Caroline’s Rooms (as long as there is space available in the given hospital unit). Not that it takes a lot of room. "At Yale-New Haven, it’s a very small room. It fits six people maybe. But it’s used constantly, and it’s right in the middle of the unit."
"There are people who’ve stopped me on the sidewalk and thanked me and said, ‘I’ve been in Caroline’s Room.’ ... While there have been some sad outcomes, there are many, many more where you celebrate life. There are more kids who survive than don’t. So it can be a place for someone to just talk to their doctor in private or pray with their minister. A Texas Caroline’s Room actually has an annex where families can spend the night the night before the baby is going to be discharged."
On the different shifts she has worked:
"There’s a big difference between anchoring a morning show and an evening show. The morning is much more light-hearted and you’re able to get away with more things. In the evening, you’re a lot more serious. The shows are lot tighter. You’re telling people what happened that day. You have to know who your audience is. Mostly at 5 o’clock there are a lot of women watching. You have consumer stories... stories that are appealing to people home at that time (people coming home from work, retirees, etc.). You try to tailor it to those people.
Changes in the business:
"Technology has changed a lot, we use our helicopter, Chopper 8. People love that, and they want to know what’s going on. The Internet is a big factor; we’ve just started blogging."
On her return co-anchoring with Keith Kountz.
"It’s wonderful that Keith and I are paired up again. Five a.m. to 5 p.m. Remember when we did the morning show and now the 5 p.m.! It’s great. Coming home again and pairing with Keith made it so easy. That 5 o’clock hour, we talk about it all the time. That it’s the easiest hour of our day because everything leading up to that newscast has so much intenstity. You’re putting the newscast together, especially if breaking news happens. You’re trying to figure out where it’s all going to go, how we’re going to present it. And finally, when you’re sitting in front of that camera, it’s just a comfortable feeling. You’re sitting next to someone you know very well, and you’re talking with the people you’ve known for so long."Sounds like a promo, Jocelyn.
"No, truly, people feel it. People tell you that. They feel comfortable. Anchor teams are difficult to pair up."
Does she worry about ratings?
"Sure, I look at them everyday. We get the overnights. It’s part of the business. Both Keith and I are very competitive. We like doing well. We’re a strong No. 2 right now."
On not being able to use ratings for Bridgeport viewers in this market:
"It doesn’t make sense that the largest city in Connecticut is in the New York market. Does that make sense to you. It’s a disservice to the people of Bridgeport because they (New York stations) are not covering Bridgeport. I can’t imagine people living in Bridgeport not watching local news when we’re covering them better..."

I interviewed Joceyln Maminta recently at WTNH in New Haven. She's a veteran news anchor there who has also worked in Milwaukee, Lubbock, Texas and other places. The story is in Sunday's Register and we'll have more on the interview when I post it on Tuesday morning to this blog. I can't get at it from this computer.

Yankees take two from the Red Sox in Beantown... Very special, and a shout out to Sox fan Pat Ferrucci, who is on a baseball tour of several parks. See his Blog Like an Egyptian for more.

Thinking of little Frankie DeMatteis this week, who is on another visit to his friends and doctors at Duke U. For the whole story, see http://www.frankiepants.com and do contribute.

My colleague Pat Ferrucci is going on vacation so I must get my shot in now: The Red Sox lost three straight to the Royals. Things just haven't gone well for Pat's team since he made fun of our beloved Bernie Williams in a post on his blog (see nhregister.com for the link, or below). Pat was counting on 2 of 3 wins and maybe a sweep. The Royals fans are the ones who brought brooms to the third game. And the goofy ex-GM of the Royals was sitting in the front row doing the swami-hex thing for three games. What a loon...

My Sunday column in the Register will feature a Connecticut serviceman commenting about his job in Afghanistan. Here's a added bit from his journals about a mission to a nearby tower in the mountains:
I saw a few critters while I was up there.. The afghans caught a scorpion which they put in a Gatorade bottle. My guys caught 2 spiders the size of my palm, seriously, they are huge here. They put them in this container together and less than 3 minutes later one had killed the other and was beating him with one of his legs to ensure his death. We also found a huge centipede which the Afghans immediately killed. There were a good amount of wasps while we were up there. We never found the nest but they kept flying inside for whatever reason. These Afghan wasps are like a golden red in color and bigger than ones you see in the US. I was lying on my bed half asleep and turned over and my arm landed right on one. The wasp bit my arm off, well not literally but it felt like it had. Because it tore a chunk of my skin off, I was in pain for a while especially with no ice. ...
This Journal is dedicated to 4 soldiers from my base that were wounded in a recent firefight. One of them got shot in the back under his armor and is now a paraplegic. I don’t know these soldiers personally but we are still close as we fight for the same cause...

Coming tuesday aug. 15 on ABC:

The first installment of “Primetime: The Outsiders” will explore people who live with wild animals, forgetting the dangers that are involved. John Quiñones reports on a couple who raised a chimp named Moe as the son they never had. St. James and LaDonna Davis raised Moe in their home as you would a child, teaching him to shower, dress in clothes and watch television. They even gave him his own credit card. Yet they discovered the harsh reality of animal behavior after a vicious disfiguring attack by another chip (sic) at a birthday party they threw for Moe at a wildlife sanctuary.

to which we envision a credit card ad:

Bananas: $3; Chimp clothes from the Gap: $87; box set of The Three Stooges: $39. Grandchildren who look like Johnny Damon during his Red Sox days? Priceless.

We spoke with Chris Matthews of MSNBC earlier this week. Here, in a J4 exclusive, are the notes from the interview, which were condensed into a story for the New Haven Register on 8-11:
On Joe Lieberman’s problems in the primary, Matthews did say that "It’s supposed to be a process here. These elections are supposed to matter. If you live in Capitol Hill and work in politics, some days we all go around glumly and someone says, ‘What’s his problem?’ ‘Oh, he’s got opposition.’ I’m like ‘Excuse me, isn’t that the job?"
"You gotta look at the person’s position, not past voting record. Joe’s position is hawkish. I’m just extrapolating what any voter might have to think about this. It’s not about him; it’s about position. If George Bush were to attack Iran tomorrow morning, drop a bomb on some site, you know who would be saluting by noon: Joe (and) Hillary probably. They’ve established a pattern now."
On George Bush:
"I don’t think any other president would have taken us into Iraq. I look at any other president we’ve had, could have had. It was a unique perfect storm of advice he got from Cheney and the other guys..."
Even Matthews was on the Bush leadership bandwagon for his leadership in the days following Sept. 11, 2001.
"I thought on Sept. 14th (that Bush had become a strong leader in the wake of 9-11), but it was the missed opportunities in the first year (that became the story). A million Iranians in the streets supporting us, Europe supporting us, the world supporting us... and not being able to harness that to do what we had to do to stop terrorism.
"And I think there’s two things on terrorism. One, have we created more terrorism since he’s been in office? Yeah, clearly, more people hated us... more people are willing to die to kill a Westerner. There’s no doubt it’s been incendiary. The other thing he hasn’t done... and I’m not a politician, but look, every American president since Harry Truman has accepted two hats in the Middle East. Friend of Israel for a lot of reasons, right? And second hat, great power/peace broker in the region. Clinton did it pretty well. You gotta have that second hat, and ... this president hasn’t put that second hat on.
"Maybe it requires sophistication, book learnin’, history, a sense of duty instead of just politics. ... All presidents have said, ‘Look, I’m pro-Israeli’ but when the time comes, I’ve gotta step back and look at both sides and say, ‘Hey, you Mubarek and you Abdullah and you over here, let’s deal.’ ... I wonder why we haven’t talked to Syria because we’re going to have to. And I wonder why we can act like we can talk Hamas away. ... You don’t ignore them."
On his personna in the media and being attacked by left and right, especially in the blogosphere:
"Every day of my life. You’ve got David Brock of Media Matters with his glass-menagerie sensitivity, and then you’ve got the people on the right who seem to think I’m some kind of lefty. And people on the left who think I’m some kind of righty. ... What they do is, bloggers — and I know it’s their job — they simply try to find something to disagree with. Not that’s ‘wrong,’ just disagree with. And they throw out everything else you do. ... I was tougher on Bill Clinton than anyone. I’ve always been reasonable with George Bush. It’s always been a mixed bag with both these guys. And I think I have been opposed to the war from day one."
On his pointed interviews with right-wing lightning rod Ann Coulter, Matthews said, "I asked her if she had a soul. ... I asked the audience, which was full of ‘pinks’ and ‘limes’ in the audience, a bunch of rich kids, ‘How many of you love this person?’ And many were there because of her celebrity. And then I said, ‘How many vomit at the sound of her name?’ And that’s considered not tough enough? The first time I interviewed her, I asked, ‘Was Jack Kennedy a traitor?’ (based on Coulter’s remarks about Democrats being traitors). She’s very well read and her book is beautifully written. ... Read the part about Willie Horton... It’s like the early George Will."
Matthews, in a New Haven speech during 2003’s early military successes in Iraq, second-guessed his opposition to the war but now says, "I am covering events and (at the time) there was no insurgency whatsoever. Now, as events developed, my hunch was right. I am not a visionary. Two years in Africa in the Peace Corps taught me a number of things. One was that people ... want to rule their own lives, and when someone comes in, no matter how nifty they are ... they resent them. They’d rather have their own crowd do it badly..."
We quoted an old column Matthews wrote about Lieberman in which he said about the senator, "That tearful voice masks an engine of ambition."
"You mean that Sandy Dennis post-nasal drip, is that what you’re talking about? The lacrimose (tone)... He’s a very ambitious guy. He’s a guy who’s very apologetic, plaintive. How come he was almost vice president of the United States? ... Hey, look, I’m all for the guy. He’s a great student of history. He wrote a great book, ‘The Power Broker,’ about John Bailey. I’ve been watching him all through his career. But certain things he’s done, I think, have not been consistent with what he stands for."
On the issue that got Lieberman in trouble with Democrats — his support of the Iraq War as a good thing to do — Matthews refused to speculate about whether it had anything to do with Lieberman’s strong Jewish faith.
"Anybody suggesting they can probe into somebody’s conscience is full of it. Tip O’Neill once said to me ... ‘You never know what’s going on in someone else’s heart.’ And if somebody came up to me and said, ‘You’re a Catholic; that’s why you’re against abortion,’ I’d say, ‘First of all, I’m pro-choice’ and secondly, if I have a point of view morally about abortion it’s because of my moral beliefs. It’s not what somebody tells me to believe. ... There are a lot of people I know who are journalists, who are very skeptical about this war, who happen to be Jewish, too. You can’t judge... we had a guy we interviewed this morning (in New Haven) who was traditional, Orthodox and he was saying, ‘I speak for all members of the Jewish community, liberal... orthodox, all are supporting Joe.’ Well, a guy in our truck, one of our crew who is Jewish said, ‘I didn’t get the memo.’ I am very uncomfortable about talking about another group’s ethnicity. I know most Americans are pro-Israel ... The first place I went after the Peace Corps was Israel, I was there for a month, and it was like going home. I’m from northeast Philly... But don’t drag me into this thing. I can’t read Joe’s mind. If you were to interview Joe on that question, you might get an interesting answer."
Matthews said the Iraq issue looms large in America today, regardless of a person’s faith.
"I do think that this election, if Joe gets blown away, will have an effect on fund-raising. Because a lot of people who are conservative and hawkish will feel, ‘Oh, I don’t belong in the Democratic Party now? Is that the message I’m getting here, that I’m not welcome after all these years of helping the party, because I’m more of a Scoop Jackson guy?’ You’re gonna hear some of that, if he gets blown away."
Matthews sees the story as one of insider politics:
"It’s the establishment vs. the outsider. I’m telling you, that’s what this election is about. It’s about the guys like (Don) Imus, the big shots in the media, the big shots in Washington, they all love Joe. He’s sort of their uncle... if you know the guy, he must be a good guy. It’s the great Washington problem: If you know the guy — ‘Oh, he’s a great pal of mine! I’ve known him for years!’ — circle the wagons. And that’s what people resent."
Matthews did a noon report outside on the Church Street sidewalk and urged Connecticut viewers to go vote.
"It’s the biggest story in the country today," Matthews told viewers at the start of the live report, which included a sound bite from Lieberman filmed earlier in the day.
"Every wire service, the Czech news.. will have this tonight. This will be a big story for two days," Matthews says as he settles into a back office at the studio to do a live interview for a San Francisco radio station. With his shoes off now, he tells California listeners that the Connecticut vote is "the big bellweather" and that "as the numbers say, Democrats up here don’t think the war should have been fought... (and) Joe’s on the wrong side of that issue with Democratic voters."
Also on the radio, Matthews says that "today the guy who looks like he’s playing defense is the 18-year veteran. And he has a very likable family... And he’s a guy making a gutsy fight for his career here."
On the message of such bellweathers:
"I’ve always believed the current presidential election is a corrective for the guy we have in there. And the problem we have with the president right now is, he doesn’t seem to be alert enough, vigilant enough, he’s always three days late. That’s at least the perception that I share. He’s a little late for Katrina, he’s a little late for 9-11, a little late for everything."
Matthews, an opinion machine, says today’s media can be overwhelming in its scope.
On the state of the TV business:
"There are so many opportunities, so many options and such a diminishing audience. The competition for eyes and ears is overwhelming, and it’s stressful. We’re fighting on MSNBC for something less than 1 percent of the market. People are watching Colbert and nothing else; they’re watching Keith Olbermann and nothing else. They’re watching me and nothing else. ... You can’t watch everything so you choose."
What does that mean for democracy?
"The danger is you already know everything so you turn on to somebody who says ‘You’re right.’ They don’t inform; they just confirm."
On the war and the media:
"The biggest thing I’ll say is the embedded (idea) was political as well as military, and that there was a sense that serious debate about the war going in was somehow unseemly. And I’ve been critical of this war from the start... We were clearly getting off the trail of Bin Laden and onto Saddam... But my job on the air is twofold. I am expected to be a commentator, to give people the benefit of my thinking. But I’m also supposed to keep an open mind on the air so that other views are allowable, so that people don’t have to choose me based on what they think. It’s a tricky situation for me."
Matthews said his ratings numbers have gone up since last fall because of the program’s focus on the Valerie Plame CIA leak story, because "it was a story that people knew that told us a lot about how we got talked into the war. People are very sophisticated about intrigue, they can smell intrigue." Contrast that to just "a sort-of sports coverage of the war," he said, that others were offering. Instead he did "metaphysical coverage," as he called it, about what was really happening and whether new terrorists were being minted.
At interview’s end, Matthews says, "I hope you figured out me ... but you never will. You’ll never figure me out, because I’m a completely conflicted, patriotic American who sometimes sounds like he’s on the left but also can sound like I’m on the right. Pat Buchanan and I... a broken clock is right twice a day, you know?"
He launches into a riff on real conservatives, neocons, the British and the accents of those who tore down the Saddam Hussein statues. It is stream-of-consciousness Chris Matthews but it’s an interesting ride, for sure.

See below for description.

Matthews heatedly talks to a producer on Church Street in New Haven, first saying he couldn't hear him right, then complaining that the Secaucus gang didn't prepare the entire clip he wanted. The standup went smoothly, however.

Interviewed Chris Matthews Tuesday as he was broadcasting from New Haven for MSNBC and WVIT. I'll have a photo here and the candid interview from one of our favorite blabbermouths.

OK, it's time to get nasty. Anytime I think of Pat Ferucci's beloved Boston Red Sox, my blood boils a little. But the Yankees are now on top, and that makes us in Yankee Nation happy. Pat is the guy who sits next to me at the Register and his blog is Blog Like an Egyptian (his, like mine, suffers from a goofy name). I plan to take regular shots at Pat's team here, and he'll do the same with the Bronx Bombers on his wretched blog. That's called cross-promotional synergy.

This is where it all began for me: My parents' wedding. I know you don't care, but I had to test-upload a photo.

Just returned from Pony Nationals in Sterling, Va., where the team I coach, Cheshire Wildcats competed well in fastpitch softball. Very interesting experience. I would recommend the Hyatt Reston, too, which is attached to Reston Town Center. (I cover TV and lifestyle stuff here at the New Haven Register but I like travel stuff as much as anyone). Anyway, I had done a column on top-rated chain restaurants recently, and wondered why so few of the good ones are in Connecticut. Consumer Reports' top-rated seafood restaurant was McCormick and Schmick's, which we found right there in Reston Town Center. It's a little pricey, so we skipped the cocktails and I ordered a fresh lemonade to go with our two tasty fish dishes, monkfish and seared tuna. Good stuff. The weather was close to 100 degrees but the kids played great. We finished in the top 20 of Pony teams in the East, I hear, losing in the bracket final to a Pennsylvania team. Girls' softball is a wonderful thing, if only because it keeps them focused on teamwork and something positive during difficult years. We really enjoyed seeing our youngest player, Holli R. from Wallingford, go deep in the semifinal for a triple. Moments like that are ones you never forget.

OK, this is my first post to the blogosphere. I'm going to blog like there's no tomorrow. Blog, blog, blog ... and yet try to say something interesting. I'll call this J4, for Java Joe's Journal Jive. We won't be taking ourselves too seriously here, for sure.