Detroitblogger John, aka John Carlisle, spoke to my feature-writing class today. A joy. He talked about starting his blog as a way to keep his writing skills sharp, which morphed into his Metro Times column (down on the DL), which morphed into being named Detroit’s Journalist of the Year, and a reconciliation of sorts with his current employer, a suburban chain where he doesn’t write anything other than headlines.

I was struck, once again, by how far we’ve fallen as a business and how much we’ve changed as a craft, that a writer as talented as he is has to literally hide it away, and this in a town where the newspapers once stood in national company as places where a writer could really flex. I wanted to work at the Detroit Free Press once, and no, it wasn’t the Gannett sale that wrecked the place. Some great writers passed through that newsroom, a tiny few might still be there, but when I look for good examples of the craft to share with my students, I almost always go to the big four or five — WSJ, NYT, WashPost, St. Petersburg Times, et al.

And that’s a crime.

I should be out riding my bike or something, but I’m not. I skipped lunch today, and just broke the fast with some pasta with cannellini beans, rosemary and onions. It made me feel so warm and happy I just want to enjoy the feeling for a while. How do people who live forever on zero-carb diets do it? How can one feel warm and happy without beans and pasta? No wonder they’re so nasty all the time.

I wonder if anyone has done that research before — correlating one’s diet with their politics. I follow a few blogs not listed on the sidebar, and it’s so strange how often a switch to paleo eating is followed by aggressive assertion of right-wing political views. They eat a few steaks and start thinking they actually went out and slaughtered the beef themselves, using only their stone-tipped spears that they sharpened themselves. No government program for them, no sir!

Maybe it’s the growth hormones talking.

Not that I have ever turned down a nice steak. But then, I’m a moderate.

My head has been immersed in politics and policy all day, and I’m craving a palate-cleanser. When I do, I pop in on T&L and see who they’re taking apart (or not). I’m totally with them on Jennifer Lawrence and Beyonce, ditto Emma Stone and Shelley O. I LOVE that dress, hate the brooch. Maybe it’s part of her security equipment.

And when I’m done palate-cleansin’, I may take us out to see “The Hunger Games” this weekend, but only if I have two signed affidavits that it doesn’t suck. I just sampled some pages from the book online, and I’m not sure if I’m up for two hours of dystopia, but on the upside? Jennifer Lawrence. She seems to be playing the same character she did in “Winter’s Bone,” only with more sci-fi and Elizabeth Banks, and no meth. And she looks so cute in that black dress, right T&L?

Is this book any good? Anyone?

Late afternoon brought a phone call: Lance Mannion, telling me that Mrs. Mannion was the college classmate of the Romney aide who made the Etch-a-Sketch faux pas today. For the record, I loved it. Romney, and his staff, have such a tin ear for this sort of thing that it will make for a truly entertaining campaign season. One step forward, two gaffes back. If nothing else, it will be more entertaining than the escalating spiral of the-world-is-ending campaign speechifying, which Eric Zorn has been dutifully cataloging.

What else? Here’s a Gawker rant on fabrications by This American Life contributors who aren’t named Mike Daisey.

And with that, I’m off to Lansing. Happy Thursday, all.

I didn’t hear every word of the “This American Life” walkback of “Mr. Daisey Goes to China,” the riveting hour of radio aired in January that turned out to have…well, you can read the stories everywhere. The economical phrase is “numerous fabrications.” But I heard enough, and for the record, the most interesting segment was the one at the end of Act 2, where, after an agonizing grilling by Ira Glass, Mike Daisey (the monologuist whose truthy monologue the show was based on) asks to come back and say a few more things.

Glass notes that he thought Daisey was going to cop to a few more fabrications. But no. He wanted to make an extended argument that embroidering the facts of his monologue about Apple’s manufacturing processes was defensible to make an emotional connection with the theatrical audience, and that emotion raised awareness, and therefore, was a type of truth, if not a journalistic one. (At least, I think that’s what he was saying.)

Glass countered that theater was one thing, and journalism was quite another, but if a person stands up on stage and says, “This happened to me, it really did,” even in a theater, then the audience has an expectation that what they’re going to hear is factual.

This fascinates me. Every so often I go on a tear against urban legends, which used to arrive regularly via email and now arrive regularly via Facebook updates. No, U.S. congressmen and presidents don’t get obscene, six-figure salaries FOR LIFE because someone told you via email. No, a bunch of U.S. Marines didn’t beat the crap out of a guy who stole the Toys for Tots donation bowl; the thing that looks like a clipping from the paper is doctored. No, the Obamas didn’t have that conversation in a restaurant, the punchline of which suggests that Michelle made her husband what he is. And every time I do, someone says, “Oh, I figured it was bullshit, but I passed it along because it’s a good story.” In other words, Daisey may be onto something. When Mitch Albom was caught pre-writing a story that hadn’t actually happened yet — an act he called “a wrong assumption,” some of his biggest defenders were readers, who said, essentially, big deal. He thought it was going to happen, and he’s real busy, and anyway it’s a good story and what’s the harm?

The harm is that facts are facts and truth is truth, and sometimes they don’t always mesh perfectly.

I think that’s the last time Ira Glass uses a theatrical piece as the basis for a show, however.

Some purty good bloggage today, plus a picture. Stand by for links!

Adrianne? Hank? Adrianne’s friend whose name I forget? Remember that bar we went to in D.C. by Union Station, the one Adrianne picked because she has that Irish nose for a good place to meet friends and raise a glass or two? Place called the Dubliner? Guess who stopped by on St. Patrick’s Day. And we missed him.

A great piece in the WashPost about the culture clash perfectly crystalized in the case of the Priest and the Lesbian and the Communion Wafer at Mom’s Funeral, which we discussed last week. A piece of work, that priest:

In 2008, he lectured at the Conservative Institute of M.R. Stefanik in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. He called for moving “away from secular political democracy or political liberalism” in order to “usher in what I would call post-secular democracies.”

“An urgent return to the religion and the metaphysical realism of the West, combined with the promotion of free economies and a sound political foundation is what is now needed to preserve civilization,” he said, according to text provided of his speech, adding that “the Western radicals think they have seen that dark world and they like it, the Eastern Europeans can awake them from their deadly delusion.”

Post-secular democracies. Wonderful.

Finally, how my husband, who just last week remarked, “Never do I feel more out of touch with my fellow Americans than I do during March madness,” spent part of the weekend:

Taking down our basketball hoop.

I didn’t make a pie for Pi Day. But I did eat a cupcake, in keeping with my contrarian mindset.

I wished it was pie. But sometimes you settle.

Another day I’m ending with a cluttered head, but nothing really coming to the forefront. I’m more of a stew today, so let’s see what sort of things will rise to the top with a good stir.

“Luck,” the HBO series about horse racing, was cancelled today, after a third horse had to be put down, following an on-set injury. Hmm. I’ve been giving it a chance, but I wonder why — it’s a little too self-consciously arch. (That’s redundant, isn’t it? Archness is self-conscious by nature, right?) But I liked the racing scenes, and the horses in general, although if you know anything about riding, you could see the jockeys struggling to ride the races they’d been directed to, with some hauling so hard on their mounts, the horses’ mouths gaped open. There was one making-of featurette that showed just how the cameras got that close — jib arms and a speeding truck, mostly. I liked Gary Stevens, a real jockey who acts on the side. I liked Kerry Condon as an Irish exercise rider trying to break into the bigs.

Didn’t like: All that Milchian dialogue, which some people love, but mostly gets on my nerves. And the dead horses, of course.

Great headline on a newspaper story — the only place you find ’em anymore — about the primaries Tuesday.

Page through a WashPost special section on cherry blossoms. (Man, I’m getting tired. I just typed “cherry bottoms.”)

And while we’re there, check out the photo gallery for the White House state dinner last night. As usual, Shelley O shut it DOWN, as T-Lo would say. But there were some other contenders.

And now it’s the Ides of March, only it feels more like the Ides of April around here. Yesterday I opened the windows for the first time, and once the morning rain passes, I think I’ll do it again.

But before that? Poached eggs.

As someone who has always thought it was silly that certain ethnic holidays are celebrated mainly by white people, eating in restaurants being served by the people whose holiday it allegedly is, I don’t find this cartoon — about Cinco de Mayo in Brentwood — particularly offensive. Not offensive at all, in fact.

What say you? The attached tweet says it got a Patch editor fired. Seems an overreaction to me. But that’s Patch for ya.

Sorry. All that Palin talk must have rubbed off on me.

I don’t have a great deal today, as you have probably suspected by now. The project that’s been blotting out my personal sun runs today in Bridge. Charter schools. Some of you may find this more interesting than others.

If you want something a little spicier, one of the good guys of newspaper journalism has died. Nelson Rockefeller-style.

More tomorrow, but for now — gotta work.

Googling the Black Keys the other day, I came across this year-old, sadly appalling essay by Denise Grollmus, who if you don’t know the name is the former Mrs. Patrick Carney, and he is one-half of the Black Keys. A key, if you will.

They married young and divorced only a little older, and if you think the story of their breakup is worth wading through for the special insights she will bring to the tale, something about love and commitment and fame and Grammys, you’re not going to get that. If you think it’ll be worth it because there’s lots of dirty dirt about backstage cheating and groupies and whether Mick Jagger’s equipment is really the tiny todger Keith Richards says it is, you won’t get that, either. Which is why I finished it irritated. It’s not a short piece, and frankly, the most interesting part of it was this bit from the comments:

Patrick Carney has to be screened for Marfan Syndrome, if he hasn’t already. I’m struck by his physical features and how, like many I know, fit the MFS profile. His height, lanky frame and long limbs and face and glasses.

OK, no, that wasn’t the most interesting part. This was:

I started going to therapy, where I was diagnosed with alcohol-induced mood disorder, a diagnosis that I quickly dismissed because I thought I knew better.

This is an actual diagnosis? Alcohol-induced mood disorder? Where I come from, honey, we call that “being drunk,” and a disordered mood is sort of the point. But OK, I get it: You married your sweet rocker boyfriend, you were happy for a time, and then you weren’t, and you got a divorce. If you’re really the master’s level creative nonfiction writer your website says you are, you ought to be able to do a lot better.

Why do couples do this? I guess it’s natural for a writer to seek revenge in writing — lord knows I’ve tried often enough. But this sort of thing is just squicky. No greater lessons are learned, no grand conclusions drawn, no attempt made to justify the intrusion into a couple’s intimate life with a bigger truth about our frail human hearts. It’s one of those things for which the kids have a word: FAIL.

So.

Has anyone noticed I’ve been silent on the Rush Limbaugh affair? I have. I’m just sitting here, watching the pinball bounce around the machine, only really I’m thinking about “Angry Birds,” which isn’t pinball. I had finished all levels of the game and was on the verge of deleting it from my iPad when I launched it one last time and discovered a new level, and a new bird. It’s orange. Its trick is, after it lands, it inflates like a balloon for a few seconds, then deflates and fizzles off into the ether. It’s a tricky one; if you can’t wedge it into a place where its inflation will knock a few pigs loose, it’s not much use to you.

Anyway, I’ve been wondering if Rush is the orange bird, inflated but just about to start hissing air out and flying around the room for a few final seconds. And even as the advertisers jump off his sinking ship, I don’t see this ending any way other than well for the fat man. His bunker is too well-padded with money, and there will always be someone to advertise their crap on his show. Every photo I see of him, he’s with some other old white man, who’s frequently laughing maniacally at something Rush said, mouth gaping open and double chins a-quiver. He’s yesterday. Sandra Fluke — and Denise Grollmus — are the future.

Although who knows? Maybe he’s going off his rocker. I’m told she was Tuesday’s target, a Michigan woman who’s written a book about food. And no, I can’t figure out why he was upset, either. But it’ll be good for book sales, I’m sure.

A little bloggage:

Hey, basketball fans: Amy Welborn’s son edited this. (NOTE: Link fixed.)He works for Turner Broadcasting. Discussing this with J.C., who also worked there, I wondered if Amy’s son might have ever seen three enormous Ampex 2-inch videotape decks that used to be there, each wearing an engraved name tag — Jill, Kelly and Sabrina. (The original Charlie’s Angels, for you youngsters.) J.C. said of course not, those decks were long gone, but here’s a bit of super-ultra-obscure broadcast trivia: They were originally called Larry, Curly and Moe, the names written with Magic Marker on index cards. They were sent out for service, back to Ampex, and Ampex returned them with the new names, and the fancy tags. A little joke between the company and a good customer. Their decks were angels, not stooges.

It’s been a long day. I think I’m going to bed.

I was down at Wayne today when my colleague and GPT partner Ben Burns wandered in. I asked him whether his Little League coaching career had intersected with Prince Fielder’s time in the locals. It had.

Fielder — although I guess you’d call a 12-year-old kid by his first name, wouldn’t you — was a head taller and two kids wider than every other player there, and could hit anything, Ben said. He knocked everything over the fence, to the point that one day Ben called for an intentional walk, generally frowned upon in Little League, but hell, it’s not every day you face a future MLB star.

Fun fact: When Prince was 12, he was messing around in Tiger Stadium with his dad and hit one into the stands. Fair.

So, bloggage?

We had a good Bridge yesterday. Ron’s piece on the loss of skilled public employees in Michigan was great — you never think of stuff like that until you read something like this:

Michele Glinn loved her job, and she was good at it. As the only Ph.D toxicologist working in the Michigan State Police toxicology unit, she analyzed blood samples for alcohol and other drugs — and crisscrossed the state testifying in court.

Frustrated by unpaid furlough days, a shrinking staff and a negative public perception of state employees, Glinn sat down at her computer one day last fall and sent her resume to an employment search firm. “I got a call from the headhunter the same day,” Glinn recalled. “Two days later, I had a phone interview; a week later, I was in St. Louis being offered a job on the spot.”

Her U-Haul crossed the state border in November, leaving Michigan with no one who can provide expert testimony for the prosecution in alcohol and drug cases. “The state has no one to answer scientific questions,” Glinn said. “That’s a public safety issue.”

I had a piece on the guy who does the Pure Michigan parodies.

I was thinking the other day about maybe getting an iPhone 4S — the talking one. But maybe? No:

But not in every way. Siri’s dirty little secret is that she’s a bandwidth guzzler, the digital equivalent of a 10-miles-per-gallon Hummer H1.

To make your wish her command, Siri floods your cell network with a stream of data; her responses require a similarly large flow in return. A study published this month by Arieso, an Atlanta firm that specializes in mobile networks, found that the Siri-equipped iPhone 4S uses twice as much data as does the plain old iPhone 4 and nearly three times as much as does the iPhone 3G. The new phone requires far more data than most other advanced smartphones, which are pretty data-intensive themselves, The Post has reported.

I refuse to be a data hog just to have Siri type my text messages.

I thought the weekend would never come, but it’s here, it’s here! Enjoy yours. I’m hoping to get to the market — it’s been a while. Maybe a picture? Here’s hoping.

I think I’m starting to lose my perspective on media criticism. Have I been away too long? Am I cynical to the point of…cynicism? I need a reality check. Watch this, and tell me I’m crazy to think it’s — what’s the word I’m looking for? — vile:

It’s a long piece, and I’m sorry to ask you for 11 whole minutes of your time. Asking someone to watch Charlie LeDuff is a little like asking them to watch Morton Downey Jr., c. 1982. Is this a new thing? Is this what TV news people do now? Pose dramatically, do stupid visualizations of their narrative, and build an 11-minute piece out of the fact one’s grandfather was a “mulatto,” whatever that meant in the American South at early midcentury, and then have the nerve to call their piece about it — wait for it — “Black Like Me?”

You people who do genealogy research (Alex?) and are familiar with the racial issues it sometimes brings up (Alex!) are going to have to calibrate me a little. Because this is chapping my ass. I’m starting to believe I have found the next Albom. And that’s saying something.

I had a work-at-home day, and what a perfect day it was: Take Kate to school just as the sky was lowering, work near a window through a lovely, brief snowstorm, then watch it clear off and get all sparkly while the high pressure moved in with the cold air. A red-tailed hawk landed on my garage roof, and that cleared off the crowd at the bird feeder for a good long while. I rooted for the predator to find lunch somewhere, if not at our feeder.

And now it’s Thursday night, and I’m about to shut down the internet, because I understand Newt Gingrich is thundering at some CNN sap, and the only thing that can fix that is some “Project Runway.” But before I do, a little bloggage:

I’m late posting this from Charles Pierce, his account of How The Greatest Health-Care System In The World Works, an account of something that happens to someone, and likely many someones, every single day in this country:

I mention all of this because, tomorrow night, the five remaining Republican candidates will get up on stage and they will promise to repeal even the tepid, insurance-friendly reform of the way we do health-care in this country. Willard Romney will do this even though the tepid, insurance-friendly reform is one he virtually invented. They will have nothing to replace it. They will argue for “market-based” solutions. The above — that is a “market-based solution.” And, by the way, this is the kind of thing that zombie-eyed granny starver Paul Ryan wants to put elderly people through in place of Medicare. Phone trees. Automated voices. Hours of their dwindling lives on hold, waiting for purportedly live persons who won’t be able to help them. And zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan is considered by people in my business to be a serious thinker on these matters.

Every single one of these Republicans will make the argument that, because of the entire morning I spent dealing with the preposterous way we do health-care in this country, that I am a “freer” person than are the people in Canada, or New Zealand, or Germany, or Finland. That I had to spend an entire morning mired in bureaucratic absurdity means I have retained my “freedom” as an American.

I’m not up on Paula Deen, you guys. I don’t watch cooking shows for the most part, but I pay at least some attention to pop culture, and I knew she was known for buttery, sugary, over-the-top, borderline-white-trashy food. I didn’t really have many thoughts on her diabetes diagnosis other than to say that it’s too bad, until I saw this and fell to the floor, insensate. Bacon-wrapped, deep-fried macaroni and cheese? Oh-kay.

Finally, thanks to Paddyo, what it’s like to have a rabbit in your life, and apparently, no limit on what you’ll spend on vet care. Sweet, but crazy.

Car prom! Took my camera! Let’s get started:

The North American International Auto Show is held in the vast space of Cobo Center, which may not be as vast as your city’s convention center, but is pretty big. The show runs for two weeks — the first couple of days is the media preview, followed by industry days, the Charity Preview (aka Car Prom) for one night, and then the show opens to the public, and once it does it’s no longer possible to be handed a flute of champagne by an Italian beauty at the Maserati space, which goes to show you the public always takes a screwing. But Alan worked a week’s worth of hours and then some in about three days, and deserved a pleasant night out. That’s what we got.

So let’s go to the show. Hi, Miss Michigan USA!

As you can see, some people took the black-tie designation seriously and some people went with the modern designation. Everybody looked fine, if a little Fellini-like under the lights. But no matter, the wine is flowing and let’s stop for loyalty’s sake at the hometown heroes, Ford.

That’s the 2013 Ford Fusion, one of the hits of the show. The auto writers called that grill “aggressive,” apparently because it protrudes a bit, which along with the squinty-eyed headlights gives it an aggressive, don’t-mess-with-me face, a new feeling for a mid-priced mid-size sedan. The female Ford car models, er, “product specialists” all wore those white dresses. They looked sharp.

Over to Lincoln. This is the MKZ concept, but mostly it’s just me trying to do something with all the shiny in the frame:

The Cadillac ATS:

They’re touting this as a competitor for the BMW 3 series, which made BMW scoff, I’m told. Whatever. I’d market it as a domestic-made luxury sedan for patriotic Americans who want to support the 99 percent. Domestic is back, baby.

Speaking of luxury, this is a Maserati SUV which will be made in Detroit. Yup:

Side view at the link. I guess I was taken with yet another set of squinty headlights. Also the idea of a Maserati SUV. Someone call LeBron.

If Kate had rich parents, they’d buy her this for a Sweet Sixteen present:

Too bad for her she doesn’t. It’s one of the redesigned Beetles, made a little flatter and less cute, now with guitar-y rock’n’roll-osity. Maybe it’s because I remember the special-edition lemons of the ’70s — anyone for a blue-jeans Pacer? — but I think they’re all kind of silly. The King Ranch interior package for the Ford trucks and SUVs has been around for a while; some people found the cup holders a good place to leave their empties:

The many open vehicles made for a nice place to take a load off. I think this was a Mini Cooper I was sitting in:

Speaking of cute little cars, here’s the front end of that Smart pickup-truck concept from last week:

Look, it’s smiling at you! Aren’t you all ashamed of all the mean things you said about it? It’s like you were picking on a kitten or something.

A few odds and ends. I seem to recall one of you regulars is a foot man; here’s some eye candy for you:

I can’t remember if that was on a guest or one of the product specialists.

Black tie on the People Mover:

Finally, the afterglow at the Ren Cen, where the view from the glass elevator (how ’70s!) was of America Junior across the river:

Better pictures of the Charity Preview and the show in general are available at the Detroit News website. Especially this one.

And this is your correspondent, signing out:

But no, we have some bloggage first:

Joe Paterno speaks, to Sally Jenkins at the WashPost:

Paterno’s hope is that time will be his ally when it comes to judging what he built, versus what broke down. “I’m not 31 years old trying to prove something to anybody,” he said. “I know where I am.” This is where he is: wracked by radiation and chemotherapy, in a wheelchair with a broken pelvis, and “shocked and saddened” as he struggles to explain a breakdown of devastating proportions.

…How (Jerry) Sandusky, 67, allegedly evaded detection by state child services, university administrators, teachers, parents, donors and Paterno himself remains an open question. “I wish I knew,” Paterno said. “I don’t know the answer to that. It’s hard.” Almost as difficult for Paterno to answer is the question of why, after receiving a report in 2002 that Sandusky had abused a boy in the shower of Penn State’s Lasch Football Building, and forwarding it to his superiors, he didn’t follow up more aggressively.

It’s worth reading for the account of how he was fired alone.

Every audience-member’s nightmare — one’s cell phone goes off during a performance of the New York Philharmonic — turns the culprit into the culture-pages version of That Guy Who Cost the Cubs a Pivotal Game. You can see why he insisted on anonymity. I recall a profile of Wynton Marsalis from a few years back, which described a similar incident. Marsalis, without missing a note, picked up the tune of the ringtone, wove it into his improv and wove it back out to the exact point where it went off — the last two notes in “I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You.” And that’s why he’s Wynton Marsalis and everyone else is just a player.

Oh, I can’t wait until campaign season ramps up, so we can see more ads like this. Evil French!

The week awaits. If you have the day off today, enjoy it.

I need to knock together a short video for my other site, which doesn’t exactly count as a chore, except when it does. And it has to be done pretty soon, because I’m taking Kate downtown later today for a little micro-internship with an acquaintance who owns a recording studio. I take all career aspirations at this age with a mine full of salt, but it does no harm to encourage. And who knows? Maybe she will be a music producer, and maybe she’ll be the next Rick Rubin. I read a profile of Rubin once, years ago, with the arresting detail that he lived with his parents until years after an average adult would be shamed into leaving the nest, much less one with a hot streak of charting records, and not only that, he would crawl into their bed with them when he came home from a night out, and they’d talk about what he did. Srsly. The story featured a photo of all three of them, in bed.

So maybe not. But it won’t do her any harm to watch Jim lay down a few guitar tracks, which is the task for today.

So what I’m saying is, I have to turn my energies elsewhere this morning. How about some bloggage instead?

And….I don’t have much.

But I do have something for you English nerds. A little background: The Atlantic recently published a piece by Stephen Bloom, a University of Iowa journalism professor, a 4,000-word essay slagging the state as it prepares to kick off the 2012 presidential race with its famous caucuses. I haven’t read it; I refuse to read it; you can’t make me. Did I punctuate that sentence correctly? I ask because perhaps the only interesting detail in it is this blog post by the editor of the Gazette, which singles out this passage by Bloom…

When my family and I first moved to Iowa, our first Easter morning I read the second-largest newspaper in the state (the Cedar Rapids Gazette) with this headline splashed across Page One: HE HAS RISEN.

…and does what Bloom didn’t: Check the microfilm. Turns out the front page indeed includes the words “He is risen,” but not in a headline splashed across the page, but in a rather pedestrian graphic that papers run on holidays like Easter. The type is actually quite small. If anything is splashed across the page, it’s the headline MURDER DRAMA, but you know how memory is.

Anyway, score one for the editor, but in his blog, he writes:

I tend to see the religious aspect of that day’s newspaper as less splash and more dribble, kind of like Bloom’s 4,000-word embellishment.

I get what he’s going for here, comparing splash to dribble, but in comparing it to the original essay, I think he’s confusing dribble and drivel. And that, my friends, is the long way around to making several hundred words of fussy superciliousness.

Supercilious. Now there’s a word.

Off to edit video. And HT to Jeff for finding the editor’s blog. Enjoy the final countdown, all.

It’s December, and time for the nation’s newspapers to clear the decks of any Pulitzer-worthy material they might have hanging around, but trust me on this: The three-part series the New York Times just concluded, about Derek Boogaard, a recently deceased hockey goon, is worth the time it takes to read it beginning to end.

Part 1 is here, with links to the rest of the series at the top of the page. I know some of you might have difficulty accessing NYT material, so it’s worth a Google to see if a non-restricted newspaper is running it off the NYT wire service. It’s really that good, a heartbreaking look at a boy who rose in the NHL by… well, this sums it up pretty well:

There is no athlete quite like the hockey enforcer, a man and a role viewed alternately as noble and barbaric, necessary and regrettable. Like so many Canadian boys, Boogaard wanted to reach the National Hockey League on the glory of goals. That dream ended early, as it usually does, and no one had to tell him.

But big-time hockey has a unique side entrance. Boogaard could fight his way there with his bare knuckles, his stick dropped, the game paused and the crowd on its feet. And he did, all the way until he became the Boogeyman, the N.H.L.’s most fearsome fighter, a caricature of a hockey goon rising nearly 7 feet in his skates.

Boogaard’s death was from an overdose of the prescription painkillers he took to live with his many injuries, although he had crossed the line into addiction some time before, and was in fact just out of rehab when he swallowed the pills that killed him this past May. The package has many links to supplemental materials, including YouTube videos of his most infamous fights. I’m not a hockey fan, but it reminded me of this two-year-old piece, most likely also behind a paywall, called “Why the Red Wings Don’t Fight,” about the Detroit team’s rise to greatness on the Russian model of the game, emphasizing well-rounded players in every position, rather than the stars-plus-enforcers North American lineup:

Fights have always broken out during physical hockey games, but in the 1960s it became a strategy. The Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers used intimidation to win Stanley Cups between 1969 and 1975. Without players who specialized in fisticuffs, a team’s star players would be beaten to a pulp.

…Since the bloody ’80s, the NHL has been struggling to scale back fighting. It instituted penalties for coming off the bench for a fight and extra penalties for instigating. After the lockout season of 2004-2005, the league made strides to speed up the game by increasing enforcement of hooking and interference penalties. These measures further decreased the need for “enforcers.” Fighting plummeted in the 2005-2006 season. The Red Wings had 28 fights in 2003-04 and only six in 2005-06. This season the team has so little need for fisticuffs that it opted to populate its fourth line with skill players, leaving enforcer Darren McCarty in the minors for most of the season.

The bomb lurking inside Boogaard was the brain damage he sustained in all those throwdowns; he was one of the growing number of athletes whose brain was left to science to study, and what the pathologists found was sobering:

Boogaard had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, commonly known as C.T.E., a close relative of Alzheimer’s disease. It is believed to be caused by repeated blows to the head. It can be diagnosed only posthumously, but scientists say it shows itself in symptoms like memory loss, impulsiveness, mood swings, even addiction.

More than 20 dead former N.F.L. players and many boxers have had C.T.E. diagnosed. It generally hollowed out the final years of their lives into something unrecognizable to loved ones.

And now, the fourth hockey player, of four examined, was found to have had it, too.

But this was different. The others were not in their 20s, not in the prime of their careers.

The scientists on the far end of the conference call told the Boogaard family that they were shocked to see so much damage in someone so young. It appeared to be spreading through his brain. Had Derek Boogaard lived, they said, his condition likely would have worsened into middle-age dementia.

The NHL’s response? “Not enough evidence” to draw a link between repeated concussions and CTE. Keep digging, boys.

As I said, I’m not a hockey fan, but there sure are a lot of them here, and the Wings are probably the first or second most-beloved team in a city full of them. I’ve never heard a fan complain that the team doesn’t fight enough, and the few people I recommended that WSJ column to nodded in agreement, and said the team doesn’t need to fight, because they play so well.

So why are hockey teams still fighting? One of you who knows better will have to ‘splain that one.

Anyway, a truly sad story still worth reading.

So let’s turn on a dime, shall we? We need a little funny up in here:

Tom & Lorenzo take on a few of the truly astonishing outfits worn to the premiere of “W.E.,” the new Madonna movie, which I am PISSED has not dropped a trailer yet, so I can laugh and mock it. Oh, no, wait: It has. And it looks just about as awful as promised. That Madonna — so transgressive!

One of those roundups of a dozen or so helpful household hints, most of which I’d never heard of before, many of them pure genius.

And to come full circle, a great read from Deadspin on another figure from the sporting world who likely had brain damage, but the more conventional, self-inflicted kind. Never heard of George Kimball before. Thanks, Cooz.

And that’s it for me. Happy Wednesday, all.