The Orange County Register’s Mark Whicker: I’m a freaking idiot

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It was not my intention to do so. But it’s obvious that I miscalculated the effect the column on Jaycee Dugard, and the events that she might have missed during her captivity, had on those who read, buy and advertise in our newspaper.
Mark Whicker • On his column last Tuesday, which may go down in history as the most misguided sports column ever. In it, Whicker used Jaycee Dugard’s kidnapping and captivity as a hook to look back at the last 18 years of sports. The copy-editing staff understood why this might be a bad idea, giving the column this boring-as-nails headline: “Many odd things have happened in sports the past 18 years.” The next day, readers gave him a lashing for his idiocy. He then apologized. The editors also apologized, but it was still beyond boneheaded. It was downright sick. • source

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09 Sep 2009 02:10

His translator didn’t make it though. Stephen Farrell is a lucky man. Farrell, a reporter for the New York Times since 2007, is now the second reporter in three months to have been rescued after being kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan. He didn’t have to wait as long as David Rohde for a rescue (Rohde was in Taliban captivity for seven months; Farrell was kidnapped four days ago), but his rescue was far more violent. Sultan Munadi, his interpreter, was killed in the crossfire. source

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He was the subject of a custody battle. Six-year-old Richard Chekevdia was hidden in a small room in his grandmother’s house for nearly two years after his mother temporarily lost custody of the boy. Shannon Wilfong was charged with kidnapping him, but authorities couldn’t find the Benton, Illinois resident. Both Wilfong and her mother were arrested, and the boy is happy to go outside again. source

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Her children went to a birthday party just two weeks ago. Obviously, there are many strange things about the Jaycee Dugard/Phillip Garrido saga, but the strangest is that from the outside, their lives seemed somewhat normal. One person who knows Garrido and his family, Cheyvonne Molino, says that the media “made it seem like these little girls were living like wolves or jungle kids in the backyard dungeon.” What did stand out: One of Garrido’s customers says that the teenage girls dressed “very conservatively.” Hmm. source

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The Creator has given me the ability to speak in the tongue of angels in order to provide a wake-up call that will in time include the salvation of the entire world.
Phillip Garrido • In a post on his bat#(&! isane blog, “Voices Revealed.” He’s been updating it in bits and pieces over the last couple of years, although things have picked up in the last couple of weeks. It must’ve been a sign he was about to be arrested. In other news, the authorities noted that the giveaway in the Jaycee Dugard case was the fact that his children seemed like robots. • source

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