10-W-4E(state)
The News, 13 September 2007
Memo to Michael Ruane and, by extension, Claudette Mabe: YOU ARE DUMB.
Ah, journalism. The noble process by which dogged individuals take a series of events, dig into the details, and provide us with facts. Man, I sure do fucking miss that. But missing it won't bring it back, and more importantly, missing it won't fill the column inches and television hours that journalism used to fill.
Sensing a need for words to wrap around Macy's ads, newspapers like the Washington Post turn to "staff writers" like Michael Ruane to help maintain the illusion that newspapers are more than a vehicle for Best Buy circulars and Beetle Motherfucking Bailey. And when something vaguely odd but innocuous happens in our nation's capital, Ruane is right there to tell us that it happened, reveal that neither he, nor anyone else, knows what the fuck it was, and provide commentary in the form of a passerby who has even less of a clue.
The incident in question involved the Vietnam War Memorial, aka "The Wall", which, as far as I know, is widely regarded by all and sundry as an appropriate, and surprisingly non-jingoistic, tribute to those who fought and died during what is now the second-greatest military clusterfuck in US history.
Apparently, the National Park Service discovered an oily substance on a section of the wall. When you find an oily substance on a national landmark, you understandably have some questions. What was the substance? Why was it on the wall? Did it harm the wall? And was it able to be removed from the wall?
Thanks to the intrepid work of Mr. Ruane, we now know the answer to ONE of those questions. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!
"The material, which appeared to be gone yesterday, was noticed along the paving stones and the bottom of some of the panels... A roughly 10-foot area of the Wall's western side was cordoned off yesterday with orange traffic cones, and a plastic bucket containing water and a small scrub brush was nearby."
They had to use water... AND A SCRUB BRUSH? If it was vandalism, a possibility Ruane raises at various points in his article, they would have to be the worst vandals ever. I mean, the wall is already black and shiny. What possible gain could be made for making the wall MORE SLIPPERY? Is the vandal hiding in the bushes, snickering as people find the name of their fallen relative, reach out to touch it tenderly, only to have their fingers slide closer to the next person alphabetically? OH THE HUMANITY.
The investigation, we learn, is ongoing. I presume the "does it taste like salad dressing" experts have been notified. But here's the best part. Knowing instinctively that his shitty little story lacked punch, Ruane got the opinion of at least one passerby. And here is the reaction he decided to add to his article about, lest we forget, a small amount of an unidentified oil on the bottom and paving stones near the Vietnam War Memorial:
"Claudette Mabe of Swords Creek, Va., was visiting the memorial with her sisters and mother, looking for the name of a teenage neighbor who died in the war. 'It's very sad that somebody would do anything, whether you support the war or not,' she said."
Let's all say it together. WHAT THE FUCK? Support what war? Vietnam doesn't make any sense. Even Oliver Stone has stopped making statements about the Vietnam War, and he doesn't work in oils. The Iraq war? I've heard a lot of shit slung about the current anti-war movement over the last few years, but "willing to spread a small amount of an oily substance at the base of a completely uncontroversial memorial to an entirely different war" wasn't one of them, until now. That's just fucking ridiculous.
Not as fucking ridiculous as the headline in the LA Times: "Bush plans to back Petraeus' report", of course, but maybe, just maybe, if Ruane works really hard, and pays his dues, maybe someday he can get a job on the coveted NO SHIT, SHERLOCK beat at the Times.