Find the secret link to giraffe-fighting below and win a free viewing of the babbling news reporter. Welcome to Tuesday, folks!

Operation Smile Train

When I first saw this headline, I thought this was an article from The Onion. Turns out it’s real. I remember reading something a few years ago about Smile Train that made it sound kind of like the smug eff-you project of a disgruntled ex-employee. It was a group with a good cause, of course, but it was founded by Brian Mullaney, an ex-member of Norfolk-based Operation Smile, who set out to found a competing organization after ‘philosophical’ disagreement with the founders of Operation Smile. Looks like he succeeded, at least monetarily. Smile Train raised $92 million in 2009, compared to Operation Smile’s $33 million.

Smile Train and Op Smile, back together like two halves of a cleft lip.

But the two groups have put the past behind them, (perhaps because Mullaney recently departed from Smile Train–read the article for some details), and have agreed to merge in order to better serve the children of the world whose cleft palates they have set out to repair. The headquarters of the combined organization will remain here in Hampton Roads (they are building a new office in Virginia Beach). Giving us another reason to call 2011 the year of the train.

Portsmouth’s New Mayor kind of kicks ass

Kenny Wright took office last November, and the Pilot likes him, apparently. According to writer Dave Forster, “He’s trying to get people to embrace his vision, one in which people set aside their different complaints and demands and work together on big ideas that everyone can get behind.”

Wright is trying to change the discourse in Portsmouth, urging people to speak their minds, as he does, but also to listen respectfully. He also wants people to quit whining so much, and to try solving their own problems before crying to him. Speaking a community function, “he told the residents seated before him that they shouldn’t voice problems before the public until they’ve exhausted all other avenues to fix them.” That’s a bold statement to make, and one that’s not calculated to win him any political points with the kind of people who like to bring their problems directly to the mayor.

I urge you all to read this article. It’s a revealing picture of the man who has only two years to try to turn things around in Portsmouth. The refreshing thing, so far, is that he seems to be more interested in actually doing that than in winning reelection to another term.

I’m creating value!

I write this column every week for AltDaily for free. I do it because I’m a believer. I support the AltDaily mission of helping to build on the foundations of culture here in Norfolk. I’m also a “writer.” I have a degree in creative writing, one that I spent time and good money to earn. But I never actually expected to make money as a writer. Although I have occasionally been paid for my writings, I have always viewed it as something I do on my own time and for my own reasons. I have a full-time job that pays more than I would probably earn as a writer (my wife appreciates that I haven’t quit to test that theory).

Of course, that makes me part of the hoard of amateur, unpaid writers that are destroying the profession. David Carr, columnist for the New York Times, wrote on Sunday about the ironies of AOL’s purchase of The Huffington Post. HuffPo has in common with AltDaily the fact that most of its writers are unpaid volunteers. When AOL agreed to buy The Huffington Post for $315 million, a few people made a ton of money, and almost none of them were the writers. “The funny thing about all these frothy millions and billions piling up? Most of the value was created by people working free,” writes Carr.

All of us unpaid content producers are driving down the value of writing in general. According to Carr, “as advertising, the mother’s milk of all media, flows toward social and amateur media, low-cost and no-cost content is becoming the norm. Old-line media companies that are not only forced to compete with the currency and sexiness of social media, but also burdened by a cost structure for professionally produced content, are left at a profound disadvantage.”

It’s not my goal or intent to destroy the viability of writing as a career. Without full-time journalists who are paid to research and write high-quality, informative and accurate stories for the newspaper, I would have nothing to write about on Tuesday mornings. I hereby officially acknowledge my debt to them, and to the institutional news-production infrastructure that makes writing for a living possible. I never took the risk to try it as a profession, but I salute those who do. And I beg the rest of you, read the paper. Subscribe to it. Their efforts, far more than my unpaid ones, keep democracy alive in this country.

It’s very billablyfahnurgh

This woman concisely expresses exactly how I feel about the Grammy Awards.

Valentines Day and the Economics of Star Wars

For Valentines day, I broke rule number two on Jennifer Mackey’s list of Don’ts when I bought my wife a rolling pin. On behalf of my kids, I also got her a Hello Kitty soup ladle and a Star Wars apron. This may seem like a terrible idea, but you don’t know my wife, who was utterly charmed by these gifts (or at least pretended to be). The Star Wars apron got me thinking a bit about the economics of Star Wars, which is neatly summed up by this fun infographic. Next year I’m going to get the vacuum cleaner.