a blog by Jack Limpert, Editor of The Washingtonian for more than 40 years.
From a story on axios.com by Jonathan Swan and Zachary Basu headlined “Trump talks with white nationalist leader Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago dinner”:
Former President Trump dined and conversed with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday night.
Why it matters: Trump’s direct engagement with a man labeled a “white supremacist” by the Justice Department, one week after declaring his 2024 candidacy, is likely to draw renewed outrage over the former president’s embrace of extremists.
From a New York Times Inside the Best-Seller List story by Elisabeth Egan headlined “Write Every Day? Tracy Deonn Recommends Thinking Instead.”:
When she was growing up, Tracy Deonn bonded with her mother over their shared enthusiasm for science fiction. “If I ever got in trouble at home and she grounded me, it would be, You can watch the news or you can watch ‘Star Trek,’” Deonn recalled in a phone interview. She opted for the Starship Enterprise every time.
From an AP story headlined “Putin decries media ‘lies’ at meeting with soldiers’ mothers”:
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday hit out at what he said were skewed media portrayals of Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine as he met with mothers of Russian soldiers fighting there.
“Life is more difficult and diverse that what is shown on TV screens or even on the Internet. There are many fakes, cheating, lies there”, Putin said.
The meeting in the Kremlin with more than a dozen women came as uncertainty persists over whether enlistment efforts may resume in the face of recent battlefield setbacks.
From a Washington Post column by Greg Sargent headlined “A new type of reporter emerges: The ‘mass shooting correspondent'”
Just as 20th-century global conflicts and new forms of mass communication created new types of on-the-scene war reportage, rising mass firearm murders in the 21st century and the immediacy of the internet have given rise to another journalistic genre. It, too, requires reporters to navigate scenes of violence and chaos, interview victims suffering from deep terror and trauma, and effectively document what they’ve witnessed in all its agony and horror.
You might call practitioners of this new genre “mass shooting correspondents.”
From a Wall Street Journal review by Kelly Scott Franklin of the book by Jon K. Lauck titled “The Good Country:A History of the American Midwest, 1800-1900″:
In September 1879, Walt Whitman headed for the American Midwest. The 60-year-old poet traveled from Philadelphia to St. Louis, then visited Kansas before moving on to Colorado. The beauty and scale of the heartland stunned him, but he saw more, musing that “no one can begin to know what America is, or what it is destined to be in the near future, without exploring and living a while in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado.”
From a Times Insider column by John Otis headlined “A Columnist Asking ‘Why’ Around the World”:
Amanda Taub, a human rights lawyer-turned-journalist, comes from a family of engineers. Their knack for detail and analysis, unsurprisingly, rubbed off on her.
“It definitely affected my worldview,” Ms. Taub said. “The idea that there are systems in the way things work, and you want to kind of take it apart and figure out how everything fits together, and then put it back together again and make it work the way you want.”
From an AP story by Darlene Superville headlined “Biden brings Thanksgiving pies to Nantucket first responders”:
President Joe Biden on Thursday delivered pumpkin pies to Massachusetts firefighters during a Thanksgiving Day show of appreciation and his toddler grandson walked away with a red fire hat topping his blond curls.
“Oh wow,” Biden was heard to say upon seeing Beau Biden, who is nearly 3, emerge from the headquarters building wearing the hat. The president was with the firefighters who had lined up outside the building to welcome him.
From a Washington Post obitFormer by Emily Langer headlined “John Y. Brown Jr., former Kentucky governor and KFC owner, dies at 88”:
John Y. Brown Jr., a onetime owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken who parlayed his fast-food fortune into a dramatic rise in Kentucky politics, winning one term as governor shortly after marrying sportscaster and former Miss America Phyllis George, died in Lexington, Ky.
He had complications from covid-19, said his daughter Pamela Brown, an anchor and senior Washington correspondent at CNN.
From a New York Times column by Tish Harrison Warren headlined “Even Your Political Enemies Deserve a Slice of Pie”:
Just as some friends have inside jokes, my best friend, Woody, and I have an imaginary holiday. We call it Interdependence Day, an intentional play on Independence Day. The point is to recognize how we are all in this together. We mention it from time to time — things we hope to celebrate on Interdependence Day, people we want to honor on Interdependence Day, how we should get together for Interdependence Day.
