What's worth reading in The Point Weekly this week.

So it took me three weeks of phone tag and my own brand of, albeit tentative, investigative journalism, but I finally got enough material on this kid to write the story. That's what I get for volunteering for an assignment. When the news editor handed me the lead, it seemed simple enough—a profile on a precocious PLNU student who somehow got a gig with PBS to be the next Mister Rogers wouldn't be that hard.

But when I started asking questions, not everything seemed to be adding up (note the discrepancy in the penultimate paragraph), and so I had to tiptoe around and make sure that everything that ended up in the article was verifiably true. But I also had to be as sensitive to the subject as possible. I got a frantic phone call from this guy's faculty adviser after I had interviewed her and then emailed her a follow-up question, during which she expressed concern about the article. "I just got some weird vibes when you were in my office the other day." (How's that for investigative journalism?)

Gay Talese said last week that, of all the human interest stories he's done over the past fifty years, he's always been able to talk to his sources again after the stories were published. I didn't want to screw up my very first. And, let's face it, this story could have gone in some very unfortunate directions.



I also composed the captions for the "You're in good company..." section of our Valentine's Day "Salute to Singles" center spread. I've never harbored any ill will toward the holiday because it's always been like a giant birthday party for me, but I can see where some bitterness might arise, especially around here, where we're going to have the annual wedding center spread in a few weeks.

If they're not clear, they read as follows. I thought they were pretty funny:

Concert pianist, competitive ice skater and secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice speaks English and Russian fluently. She has only basic knowledge of French and Spanish, which are Romance languages.

Pope Benedict XVI has sported red Italian shoes made of kangaroo hide.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged” that while all of the protagonists in Jane Austen’s six completed novels ended up married by the last page, Austen remained blissfully unattached.

Although Stacy London graduated with a double degree in 20th-century philosophy and German literature, she currently co-hosts What Not to Wear on TLC. She lives in Brooklyn with her two cats, Moo and Al.

Hryhoriy Nestor was thought to be the oldest man in the world when he died at age 116 in December 2007. He never married.

In 2003, Rebecca St. James released the abstinence anthem “Wait for Me.” While she’s waiting, she’s devoted 2008 to raising awareness of malaria.

Henry David Thoreau spent two years alone on the shore of Walden Pond in Massachusetts. “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.”

The Apostle Paul championed the single life in the first century AD, telling the Corinthians, “I wish that all were as I myself am.”