A bunch of the cool kids are having birthdays today and are getting well wishes on Twitter. It got me to thinking that I was sneaking cigarettes and had already been through Watergate when they were not on this planet.

Getting older isn’t really a problem. I’m old enough to know better but too young to care in a lot of respects. Hit 40 and you will find that all the things that bothered you at 30 don’t matter much anymore. You find a place where it’s more than all right to just be you.

Ahh, there are issues, mind you. Chin hair (what the hell is up with that crap and ain’t it sexy.) Two cups of coffee in the morning and not the whole pot I used to drink because if I did I would spontaneously combust. A sense of mortality, and why I didn’t just become an obit writer, I have no idea. Explaining to the 23-year-old in my office that I call my car Steve Austin after The Six Million Dollar Man television show and not the wrestler whom I believe is nicknamed Stone Cold.

Do I look my age? Yeah, although I’d like to say I didn’t. Do I act my age? Well, that is relative, isn’t it? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. Depends on the day and if the voices in my head are yakking at me. They don’t listen very well.

Although Michael Silence sent us to our rooms earlier this week as he tried to drum up a mid-life crisis, I only feel the effects every once in a while quite honestly. Sometimes I am braver than I was in my younger days (which could constitute being very stupid) then other times I’m more careful (which could constitute me being a wuss.)

I’ve realized I’m neither the best at anything, or the worse, I just am.

So, you young ‘uns having a birthday, Here is some advice from Newscoma. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Treat other people the way you want to be treated. Do things you are afraid to do. Don’t listen to Bill Hobbs and eat more fruit.

You’ll thank me for this later, I assure you.

So I received the good news last night that my political boyfriend, Steve Cohen barely beat Nikki “Not To Smart At Politics” Tinker.

Heh, I tease. 79 percent of the vote for Congressman Cohen isn’t bad at all.

From the always wonderful Jackson Baker from the Memphis Flyer who attended the victory ceremony.

It was, as he said amid the delirium of his victory celebration in the ballroom of the Holiday Inn on Central Avenue, a triumph for the idea that “we can all work together” and a refutation of the “negative politics” that a desperate challenger had attempted in the last few days to save herself from the palpable yearning for unity that had reached high tide among the communities of the 9th.

Egalia and Sharon have more.

As Angela said, “Dear Nikki Tinker, God don’t like ugly.  Voters don’t either.  Now you know.  Best wishes.”

And more news from across the state where something has happened for the first time in 42 years.

A little larceny from AC/DC this fine Friday morning.

I don’t know why Brett Favre has become a raging egomanical bundle of manwaste in the last few months (although he’s been handcuffing the Packers during the last few years in every off-season) but I think this entire situation was a wake up call for fans of any sports organization.

It’s a job. It’s money. It’s ego. And it’s privilege.

Fans are loyal. Players are not and, quite honestly, they don’t have to be. They are paid to be robots on the field.

Favre is a great quarterback. Why he retired then unretired then moaned like a banshee for the past few months is beyond me. He shouldn’t have retired then he wouldn’t be going through all this.

One thing about sports icons though. They want the legacy. And Favre has screwed his up, in my opinion. Favre knew that this would be a sideshow and he did it anyway.

The Packers have told him to take a hike.

Favre forgot that no one player is bigger than his team.

So he’s heading to the Jets.

My two cents.

Xark has more.

Autoegocrat writes a hell of a post about Nikki Tinker.

The Nikki Tinker campaign and its surrogates have spent a few hundred thousand dollars and a tremendous amount of energy trying to portray an incumbent Democrat in good standing as a Jesus-killing atheist gay Jewish Klansman, and the chairman of the Tennessee Democratic Party interprets this as “a commitment to civil rights which transcends partisan labels and political attacks.”

Vote for my political boyfriend, Steve Cohen.

And, for the record, I tossed out a guy at the office yesterday too. I found out later that Homer and Squeegee Monkee had to get rid of the same guy at their business across the county.

He was pushy and didn’t leave when I asked him kindly to do so.

Then I tossed him.

I could get a job as a bouncer. Maybe Cohen’s bouncer?

Steve, call me.

I got the call about 5 p.m. yesterday. It was Homer and she sounded upset.

“Tommy Maddox has been killed in a car wreck. His truck got hit by an 18-Wheeler,” she said, her voice breaking.

I was trying to get Steve Austin, my car, back and then was headed out to find Steve McNair who was visiting Hoots because his nephews are apparently playing for the local college.

It took me a second for this news to sink in.

“Where?” I said. I’m all business during bad news. I always have been.

“Over near McKenzie,” she said. I don’t know if she was crying but she sounded like she was about to. “I feel so bad for Mrs. Bonnie. No one needs to lose a child.”

Homer, despite her edgy disposition, goes to church with Mrs. Bonnie and Mark Maddox. She’s good that way. I don’t go and she doesn’t judge me in the least.

Tommy was a bit older than me but we went to church together when we were kids. Mark and he were older than Homer and I, and my mom for a brief time created a youth group at the church. She was a musician and she put on Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell back in the 70s. It was scandalous at the time.

I called and confirmed it. He was killed just as Homer had said.

I abandoned my press stalking of McNair which I wasn’t too enthusiastic about anyway (I’m not good at stalking. Paparazzi I’m not), got my car back (finally) and headed home.

Homer looked like she’d been hit with an anvil.

And her quiet yet desperate sadness made me cry.

“You handle this stuff better than I do,” she said on the phone as I was on my way home. “I would never want to lose you. I wouldn’t know what to do. You are so important to me. I can’t imagine what Mark is going through right now. This is just horrible.”

We are wishing Mark and Mrs. Bonnie peace right now during this terrible time.

Tommy was good people. He had big bedroom eyes, was a hard-working stiff like the rest of us and had a quick smile.

He was a big part of my childhood. He will be missed.

You most likely know already who you are going to vote for today.

A couple of things, Kenneth Eaton and Mike Padgett headed to northwest Tennessee to meet constituents. Eaton actually has been here a couple of times.

I was on staycation for one week but I don’t recall Bob Tuke being around.

At all.

Last minute observations.

I just finished Basket Case and I have to tell you, it knocked my socks off.

Yeah, it’s about an investigative reporter whose role is diminished at a newspaper to writing the obituaries after he calls the new corporate owners a few choice names. It’s your basic murder mystery but the reason why the book was so good is that Carl Hiaasen has written a sardonic and real critique of the dead tree news business.

And it doesn’t just bark, it bites.

In the novel, the lead character, Jack Tagger, talks about how his fictional paper has reduced staffs, added the always dreaded special advertising sections and basically, IMHO, how journalists/editors are asked to basically not do news.

Hiaasen has worked for decades at the Miami Herald. The tiers and hierarchy of the news staff in the novel are real. Anyone in the news business will recognize everything from the excitement of an intern to the cluelessness of non-journalists managing a newspaper. They will also recognize Jack Tagger, a 46-year-old journalist who is clouded by apathy and mourns the changes in his profession before he reinvents himself.

And there is a Warren Zevon connection for you rabid fans out there.

Yeah, I’m gushing.

You can’t make certain things up.

A woman seeking to become only the third woman ever to successfully bring a sexual harassment case in Russia was dealt a shocking rebuke when the judge threw out her case, ruling that sexual harassment is actually necessary for the survival of the human race:

WTF?

The judge said this:

“If we had no sexual harassment we would have no children,” the judge ruled.

Remind me not to go to Russia anytime soon. Also remind me if this judge comes to Hooterville, that I need to throw a rabid raccoon at him.

Asshat.

Very nice.

Go here to see why.

Yup.

For LWC, Big Stupid Tommy and Ceeelcee.

Hee.

I love baseball.

UPDATE: For Miss Sharon too.

Anderson Cooper gets it right.

Jeez. Where is Chris Crocker when you need him.

Wait, we don’t.

Reginald, or Reggie as I like to call him, called the police last Thursday reporting that his Subway Sandwich had not been properly made. Apparently, he made a ruckus.

He was arrested for placing not one, but two calls to the police about his sandwich.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Credit: Smoking Gun

Silence needs ideas on the best things for him to freak out about for a mid-life crisis.

I said dart and beers over there but actually usually just ends in tears by the end of the night. (I keed.)

Did I mention I’m eight years younger than him and am turning gray.

Yet, we are still fabulous.

Image credit to Mike Lynch

I have no idea if this is true or where the hell it came from but I think it’s funny nonetheless.

It appears some congressmen are utilizing Twitter.

Chris Dodd’s also designates who on his staff is tweeting.

Joe Biden’s seems to be more of a scheduling thing of his agenda.

Not a soul from Tennessee on the list.

Figures.

Mark directs us to a new policy at CNN.

Basically, employees of the network cannot use Facebook, Twitter, Blog or even comment in forums and chat rooms without permission from the CNN higher ups according to Chez Pazienza, who was famously fired from CNN for blogging at Deus Ex Malcontent. His story is here.

You can head to their blogs to get the vibe of what’s going on.

I agree with Mark who says this:

Did I give up my right to protest or vote when I started working for a newspaper? I hope not.
Many newspapers are actively encouraging reporters to take up blogging.  Newspapers invite reporters to express opinion in the print editions. Newspapers have long held that as long as the opinion expressed is marked clearly as that of the reporter, it is acceptable.

I talk about evolving trends in the news business a lot. I don’t understand why more media folks don’t blog or use Twitter. I’ve seen more breaking news on Twitter that it still boggles my mind.

Ryan Sholin points us to a post written by an outgoing newsman of the LA Times, who is getting out of the dead tree business.

1. Technology has run laps around the print media — giving readers instant news, open-source journalism, no barriers to become publishers, and an infinite news hole.
2. The idea that your daily news is collected, written, edited, paginated, printed on dead trees, put in a series trucks and cars and delivered on your driveway — at least 12 hours stale — is anachronistic in 2008.

I think these things are connected. The writer talks about his 18 years with the Times. I’ve worked in news off and on for nearly 20 years. The way I started out has vastly changed in those two decades.

And the blogosphere has changed in the nearly three years I’ve been blogging. Some media outlets get it and have actively worked toward changing their model to accommodate changes that will happen in the future, which is smart. Even some rural outlets do although there are a great deal of folks who do not and angrily (yes, I said angrily) hold on to that the old ways are the only way to do news.

There is chasm that exists between old and new.

And CNN is treating online communication like a dinosaur. When you edit free thought, then what do you have?

Zombies in a newsroom.

What The Hell?

Why would handcuffs be on this $1 dollar toy for boys?

Seriously?

Huh?