The Police Press Conference: "No Comment"

The local TV news urgently cut to the police press conference, about to announce the end of the latest gun-slinging maniac's siege. We see the various detectives, the captain, the sergeant, the FBI chief, and a few underlings bringing in a tray of iced tea.

It's live, and somehow they have all the faith in the world that they're going to get right to the meat of the matter, what happened, how they were able to storm the maniac's compound and finally free his hostage, a five-year-old boy in mortal danger. We've literally been praying that the boy would come out safe and that the maniac would be immediately killed.

Let's get to the press conference, no more delay!

"I'm Police Captain Butch McCall, that's M-little C-big C-a-l-l. This is the FBI chief, [his name spelled]." And so on and so on, right down to the guys with the trays being the comedic Wiere Brothers (W-i-e-r-e), last seen in Elvis' movie Double Trouble, now slopping iced tea everywhere.

"We'd like to thank you for coming out today," he says to the press.

Behind the scenes at the local news, we picture the producer saying, "Cut away! Sum it up, we'll be back when they get past the introductions!"

Then a few minutes later we're back at the press conference. Captain Butch is recognizing the important work of the state police in resolving this matter. "Thank you, gentlemen, for a job well done." This is the state police's cue to step in and thank the local captain and his force, for maintaining their calm in a very tense situation. The captain nods to the FBI chief, who thanks both the state police and the local police for coordinating a great effort in resolving the crisis. Finally, the sheriff moves to the microphone to thank anyone they might've missed. Other than that they will have no comment.

The local news cuts away with the summation, "So there you have it. The police are thanking the police for doing police work."

Working My Sources

Your intrepid reporter is busy working his sources -- meaning I've been flipping from one TV channel to another and getting some of the vice presidential gossip. MSNBC over to CNN over to CNN Headline News over to Fox -- wait, scratch that, I didn't go to Fox. I accidentally got the Animal Planet channel, and according to my sources there, Bindi Erwin will not be -- repeat, she will not be -- John McCain's running mate.

I've been working my sources on the blogs as well. My fingers are literally breathless. I'm wearing out the 'Refresh' icon on my Firefox. I might have to download another copy. At Daily Kos they have a thread of speculation. I haven't looked at that yet, or maybe I have; I had to empty my cache since it was starting to spill out all over the floor, and emptying it reset all the links.

It could be Palin, Pawlenty, Romney, Huckabee, Quayle, Petraeus, Bailey-Hutchinson, Cindy. It can't be Bozo because he died a couple months ago. For sourcing on that last piece, that's from my own personal memory of the situation as I know it stands: Bozo the Clown is dead.

Your Intrepid Reporter -- Take 2

Last night I wrote about me being an intrepid reporter, and on-the-fly did some etymological speculation, deductions, (guesses, really) about the word "intrepid." I posted it to little fanfare, leading me to believe that no one was commenting on it because my explanation was beyond reproach.

I went to bed, then, and I was lying there thinking about it, mentally parsing the word, until I couldn't stand it anymore. So I got up and went to look at the dictionary, hoping to be validated, but I wasn't. That doesn't mean I looked up the other aspects of the definition, because I didn't. I just stuck to this one word, which, as it turns out, has something to do with the word "trepidation," which we all know has to do with fear. So "in" makes it a kind of opposite of that. Anyway, I could have looked up "trepidation" for its origins, but I didn't. I'm just not going to go out on a limb like I did last night and make any guesses about it.

Whether the word "intrepid" means (originally) what I said it means, or something like what the dictionary says, these are matters for scholars to debate. I'm just going to be it, not know it. I re-read over some of my reports, and really I think I was quite "intrepid." Look, I gave Joe Biden's mother five stars and I only gave Barack Obama four. That's fearless. I criticized Mrs. Biden's son for a few stumbles, meaning I have a spine of brass. I'm not that concerned about trolls or nasty emails. If you're going to be a reporter, with original reporting such as I provide, you have to play it right down the middle. To me that means Mrs. Biden did a great job, plain and simple. Others might see it differently, but that's their business; to each his own would be a good way to think about it.

I haven't turned on the TV yet today. But after while, after I do several other errands in my busy life, I plan on watching it. And I won't be taking a lot of notes. I'll just be relying on my memory. Then after it's over -- or maybe between events -- I'll come and post some comments about what happened. These may be very affirming comments; I hope they are. They may be mildly critical -- it's very likely there'll be something I don't like; I'm easy to satisfy, but not overly easy, pretty easy, but don't take it for granted. They may be quite critical -- such as if there is something very egregious, something that strikes me wrong, that raises a sense of ire. They may be super, all-consuming critical; I hope not, because I'm saving most of that for the Republican convention.

You'll have to check back, if you're really that curious. Because we're doing this in real time; even I don't know at this point what I will say!

Other Democratic Convention News

Your intrepid reporter missed most of it, to tell the truth. But among the things I saw were:

-- Joe Biden's speech. He seemed to stumble a few times. I think the problem might have been that it was mentioned a few times that he used to have a stuttering problem. So he was thinking of that and it meant a few missteps. Which illustrates the Karl Rove tactic of attacking someone's strength. In this case, he prevailed over stuttering, which led to what, bumbling words and phrases. As to the content of Joe's speech, he seemed strong and well-intentioned but it was all over the place. As for the catchphrase that the audience was to shout back, it was all muddled, and held back for some reason. When he attacked McCain for a few points this was muffled by referring to him as "John" over and over. The best parts involved Biden's personal biography, his mother, all that. He came across as a man of his word when his mother was nodding and saying "true."

-- Barack Obama made a surprise appearance at the end. He was exciting, and very personable. He had one verbal misstep as well, so it was contagious. And since I'm nothing if not tenacious, I'll trot out the same theory as to what happened to Joe Biden. Obama heard all that about the stuttering, then his subconscious said he didn't want to show up Biden, even though he (Obama) is Number One, he wanted to be gracious, and so he botched one line, and the first one even came out funny. But this isn't all bad, because it's not great to be too scripted.

-- John Kerry. I just saw a few minutes, and he was powerful about the swiftboaters, and all that. I just wish John Kerry could unleash his inner rabid dog and go genuinely on the attack. Everything that comes out of his mouth sounds half contrived and like it's being filtered within and awarded gold stars before it exits his mouth.

-- Bill Clinton. The dawg knows what he's talking about when it comes to presidents. And I thought his endorsement of Obama was pretty good. We don't want the world to go to pot, do we, just so Hillary will get another shot at it in four years?

-- Tammy Duckworth. I saw most of her presentation. She was heroic without taking a lot of credit herself. She was lavish in praise of her brother and sister soldiers.

-- Steven Spielberg film. Excellent, of course, touching music, a tearjerker of a tribute to veterans. It was good for more than the obvious reasons, but for this, that it showed the soldiers as so vulnerable, suggesting they've protected us, now they need a protector, someone to get them back to full strength. Tom Hanks was powerful.

All in all, then, things went pretty well. Joe Biden's mother gets five stars, Joe Biden three, Clinton four, Duckworth three, Spielberg five, Kerry three, Obama four on the evening.

Your Intrepid Reporter

Your intrepid reporter reporting here.

I've always liked the word 'intrepid.' It's like other words, if you say it a bunch of times it sounds weird. It sounds like a biped with three feet, a triped, or tripod. Trep is like a trap or a trip but isn't a word in its own right. I would guess the 'intre' goes together, as in intro, 'into' with a definite direction. As for 'pid,' my etymological guesses at first are up against the wall, but 'pedal' and words involving the feet ('pied' or 'podiatrist') come to mind. So put those together and you have someone taking steps in a courageous way into a situation. Look it up. I might be wrong but I can't be too far off.

But what does 'intrepid' mean when we use it generally? It's a word we all know when we hear it but because we don't use it in everyday conversation, it's definition is not immediately obvious. We could think first of 'fearless,' fools rushing in where angels fear to tread.

We tend to use it in a humorous way that suggests a parody, or an ironic speaking to someone's abilities. We know there were those who were genuinely, unabashedly intrepid in history and adventures, before anti-heroes, if you will, when heroes wore white hats and were unambiguously heroic and good. As for heroes today, you never know, they might be drunks and tragic figures when they put their white hat away, and when they take off their tight suit their belly flops out, very disgusting, pure fat. So it's always 'your intrepid' this or that with a slightly arch wink and a knowing, nodding chuckle.

I didn't mean to get into all that. We might say -- and with this next bit of humor I am really going to impose on your patience -- that I did something 'intrepid' in fact, stepping into a subject and explaining it both with precision and unnecessary extravagance.

The next post will get beyond the meaning of your reporter being 'intrepid' into what your 'intrepid' reporter has to say about tonight's convention news.