This Long Weekend's Reading, Watching and Thinking

• George Bush unable to not read along with teleprompter/sit comfortably next to Bill Clinton in 30-second Haiti PSA.
• The Nationals mens’ free skate is today at 4:30 p.m. (EST) on NBC! Watch and try to figure out if the fruity costumes disgust you because they’re extremely gay or because they’re extremely Russian. (And: here’s Johnny Weir in the short program! Suck it, haters and Russo-phobes.)
• “New York Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. appears close to announcing that the paper will begin charging for access to its website… The Times seems to have settled on the metered system…. “
• Finally reading that Clay Shirky essay about how women don’t promote themselves like men, which displays what a good thing it is that he’s married as otherwise he will never enjoy the company of a woman ever again.
• All that “violence” in Haiti! 1. Apparently “there was an air of violence” there! 2. Angry Haitians rudely demand that reporters “put down your camera and dig”! How dare they! 3. And let’s try this one, headlined “Haiti police fear violence, arrest troublemakers.” Oh? “Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has a history of street violence and looting during all-too frequent bouts of political unrest and natural disaster in its volatile recent history…. But Haiti’s feared gangs do not appear to be terrorizing the streets as they have in the past.” Hence this whole article about things that are not happening.
• Things we missed this week: “If you visit a rich and fashionable British household these days, you’ll see something that has never existed before in the civilised world — an active dislike of old objects, or signs of human existence previous to their own.”
• Elsewhere in Knifecrime Island: “There are children today who are more likely to see their dad drunk than doing a day’s work.”