Look, I’m as big a fan of Hunter S. Thompson as anyone, and I miss him too, but for the love all things holy and unholy, please come up with your own headlines – quit stealing his.

This mini-rant, by the way, was prompted by this, which has precisely zip to do with Dr. Gonzo.

I woke up this morning and did something I hardly ever do – I turned on the morning news. For whatever reason, I flipped over to The Early Show on CBS just in time to catch co-anchor Harry Smith attempt (and fail) to wring out some extra tragedy from the bombing of the federal center in Oklahoma City, which happened ten years ago today. I couldn;t believe what I was watching.

There’s a particular iconic photograph taken on that day of a firefighter crading an infant who had perished in the bombing. Smith was interviewing the firefighter for the show. Smith started with a somber tone, asking the firefighter, Chris Fields, if today was a tragic day for him. Fields, to my slight astonishment, said he saw today as something more of a celebration of how far the city has come to rebuild and come together since the event. In other words, he was focusing on the positive rather than dwelling on the tragic negative of the past. Totally awesome, I thought.

But Smith would *not let the tragedy go*. “Take us back to that day,” Smith asked. Fields responded pretty much in the way I’d think anyone not particularly interested in milking human misery would – they were astonished and disturbed by what they found, but they got to work. “Does it haunt you at all? Is it something you’ve had to seek counselling for or anything?” Smith pressed. Fields responded by saying that, while he did rely on his support group composed of friends and fellow firefighters, the only thing that really haunts him is the prospect of such a bombing happening again, putting more people through the challenges Oklahoma City has faced.

Smith just did not seem satisfied. I’d like to transcribe exactly what he said next, but it looks like the good folks over at CBS realized how wildly inappropriate it was and excised it from their Internet replaying of the interview. So, I apologize if I get the quotes wrong, but the sentiment was the same – “Let’s go back to that photo of you holding the baby, Baylee Almon. When you held that baby in your arms, she was lifeless, is that right?” Fields seemed to hesitate a moment, but responded yes. “What was it like to lift that lifeless baby into your arms?” Fields discussed a bit about how the one-year-old had been killed by some debris from the building, but didn’t dwell. Smith then dug deeper, asking how the mother was doing now that her only child was gone. Fields, again, spoke of the strength of the mother, how she’s struggled but has come out strong – again, emphasizing the positive.

Most of the interview can be found on CBS’s Early Show web site, minus the part that makes Harry Smith look like a human misery loving douchebag plumbing the depths of a tragedy to make good TV. Major kudos to Battalion Chief Chris Fields, though, for not falling for it.

What can you say about the tragedy of thousands of live lost ten years after the fact that hasn’t already been said? The more we dwell on their deaths and how horrific it all was, the more we demean their sacrifice. Oklahoma City has risen from the ashes, as has New York following September 11. But every year the news media will continue to mark the anniversary as a time to reflect on the horrors created there, the lives lost, the blood and the gore and the sadness, all the while completely glossing over the lives rebuilt, the strong ties of a community brought together to support one another and the steps taken – both the good and the bad – to ensure such a tragedy doesn’t happen again. That fluffy crap just doesn’t sell like pictures of dead babies and bombed out buildings, does it Harry?

The single coolest thing on the web right now is Google Maps. When it was just standard graphic maps, I thought it was very nifty and used it a lot to get a feel for the areas around where we want to move, etc.

Now, though, they’ve added satellite imagery to the mix. Oh my stars and garters… I can spend HOURS just looking around and sightseeing. Or, I can be unbelievably lazy and let someone else do it for me. Check out the truly bizarre Luecke writing in San Antonix, TX. Wow. Just… wow.

I so heart Google these days.

Check this out: Tricks of the Trade Blog. I’m seeing more and more of this kind of thing – niche blogs that serve some specific topic or idea with no extra frills. Sort of the direct opposite of the portal craze we saw back in the late 90s. It’s all about the Long Tail, baby (yet another niche blog).

Just a heads up: I have several never-before published photos taken of Penthouse Pet of the Year Martina Warren taken by yours truly a couple of years ago for a website that never actually got it together. I’m seeing that, since her recent fame, a ton of folks have been landing on my photos of Martina Warren page, which contains a very small sample of the whole set. I’ve been puzzling what to do about these pics for some time. I’m open to suggestions.

FYI – I *loved* working with Martina. She is a total sweetheart and her british accent is so teh sexy. Penthouse Pet of the Year really couldn’t have gone to a better gal.

I was lucky to miss out on most of the whole Terry Schiavo thing until it hit its massive boiling point last week when Bush and his cronies jumped into the fray. It wasn’t until a few days ago that I even saw mention of how she got into her persistive vegetative state – a heart attack connected with massive bulimia. The cause of her state made it all seem the more tragic to me seeing as the image now most associated with her was not the youthful, attractive woman the family has been trying to play up recently, but the poor, drooling, barely responsive woman connected to a menagerie of tubes and wires. Now that she’s passed, one would think this whole thing would end. But one would be wrong.

But Terry is no longer my focus. I’m now officially on death watch for the pope. I’m not at all a particularly religious man, but it’s difficult to argue that Pope John Paul II was anything but a good guy. Yes, he spoke out against homosexuality, prophylactics and other things that, quite honestly, I just can’t agree with him on, but you should expect that from the leader of the Catholics. That’s just part and parcel of who they are. Even with all that, he was a fairly progressive guy and the Catholic church has only been bettered by his service.

So it may come as a bit of a shock to hear me say that I sort of want him to die. That, after his long and righteous service to his church and God, he deserves to die. He has done some good things in this world and his poor body is now ailing him. If there is indeed a heaven and angels and all that, I have no doubts in my mind that that’s where the Pope is headed, and I believe he now richly deserves his reward. And it’s looking more and more like God will give it to him in the next few days.

But I find it more than a little eerie that both the Pope and Terry Schiavo are facing their ends at about the same time. See, here’s the thing: Terry was kept alive for so long because of her family’s deep religious beliefs. The catholics backed their decision to keep her on life support. Now, let’s suppose for a moment that the pope falls into a similar state as Terry. Naturally, the Vatican’s medical folks will want to keep him alive, as anything less would be a grave sin. While highly unlikely, let’s also suppose that the Pope is able to be kept breathing, though vegetative and unresponsive, for some time – say, 15 years. What happens in the interim? Does the Camerlengo take over temporarily? Does some cardinal? Can they fire the unresponsive Pope and vote someone else in his place? And what happens tot he rest of the catholic church during all this? Will they accept a new Pope while one is still being kept alive with feeding tubes? If they have someone perform the papal duties in the interim, will the church feel rudderless and begin to splinter, as has constantly been threatened in an increasingly secular society?

I’m fascinated by the whole papal process, especially after reading Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons (much better than The DaVinci Code, BTW). I find it increasingly interesting to see how ancient religious laws and dogma stand up against modern technology, especially they when hit a crossroads such as when the Pope, barely clinging on, must rely on modern medicine to continue respecting the “culture of life” he holds so dear. I don’t consider it hypocrisy or morbidly fascinating or anything like that – just interesting.