It’s gotten to the point that the rumors themselves have become an more important news story than what they might be about or whether they’re true.

If the rumors are the news, how do you report them while making sure that Paterson’s “alleged misconduct” doesn’t get shortened to “misconduct?” Well, we just use the word “alleged.”

The difference between "alleged misconduct" and "misconduct" is that we KNOW Fleetwood Mac all slept with one another in a bed made of pure cocaine.

But this story is more complicated than that. Gov. Paterson hasn’t been accused of anything. His ‘alleged misconduct’ hasn’t been alleged yet – the rumors are merely that the New York Times is going to publish a story laying those rumors bare.

What that means is this: David Paterson, governor of the state of New York, is under fire for rumored alleged misconduct.

WTF, news media, WTF?

At least “All Things Considered” has the decency and wherewithal to report the story as it is and investigate how it got that way. It even includes this truly classic public radio line: “This truly is the scandal that dare not say its name — because nobody really knows what the heck it is.”

It’s a perfect walk on the balance beam between reporting rumors and sussing out why we love rumors.

The lesson I’ve learned from NPR’s story? More questions.

• Can we please wait for something to become a story before making these premature ejaculations of reportage into a completely new story?
• Or has the New York Times succumbed to the same pathetic tactic of terrible Hollywood blockbusters and cult TV shows?
• Are they building undeserved hype in the name of selling papers?
• Are they trying to sex up their political coverage?

I know times are rough for newspapers, but I’m not so sure that hiking up the Gray Lady’s skirt is the way to fix it.

Add to that his crazy accent and crazy aptitude for the English language, and you’ve got a recipe for making me your biggest fan.

I took some notes after hearing his latest column, but I used the Dragon Dictation iPhone app. In a noisy car, that’s a recipe for some bizarre text. Allow me to share:

Under could just use call him on all things considered last night focus on zombies and vampires versus avatar or robot or computer-generated creatures at this wonderful dichotomy between things that are real nasty and some romantic getaway

What that translates to, roughly, is this:

Andrei Codrescu’s column, on last night’s “All Things Considered,” focused on zombies and vampires versus the Na’vi of “Avatar” (or robots or computer-generated creatures), and created this wonderful dichotomy between things that are rooted in humanity, with all the messiness, nastiness, and sexiness that that entails. It’s quite romantic, in its way.

I don’t question that impulsive reaction to the story, either. Codrescu even notes that “the zombie advantage is that they have human roots in the rising dead of all religions. If they succeed in crossbreeding with vampires, who also have undead human roots, they will be practically unbeatable.”

But really, I think the most telling moment from the transcription is this: “Avatars badger frogs, bearded cats and (unintelligible) are technically and generationally better motivated.”

I love Andrei Codrescu, but his accent is so thick as to be beligerently unintelligible. It can get frustrating. It’s so delightful, though, when you can make out the crazy things he says, and realize the ease with which he makes them seem rational.

There’s a reason Rebel Yell whiskey is called Rebel Yell. It’s not exactly the drink of discerning people. Take a big sip when you’re not ready, and you’ll let out a rebel yell. Drink too much, and the rebel yells don’t stop.

Rebel Yell is named after the battle cry of the Confederate Army, a sound that may or may not actually exist, according to who you ask.

Southern writer Shelby Foote made note of its existence during Ken Burns’ Civil War. He said that the union army’s cheer was a manly “huzzah!” sort of sound, but that the South had the Rebel Yell, a sound that you only recognize when it’s happening. Mr. Foote said that he had never actually heard a rebel yell.

I was in the same boat as Mr. Foote – until today, that is.

PRX has a recording of a rebel yell up on their site. Shelby Foote was right – it is sort of a yipping sound that makes your spine tense up a bit. It sort of sounds like the noise my dog makes when he gets stuck somewhere. Only louder. And a little more menacing.

Well, now we know what it sounds like. Ole Miss, you’re doin’ it wrong.

A few days ago, I woke up to a story about Lady Gaga as a fascinating performance artist and feminist icon. On Morning Edition. If there’s a time of day that one shouldn’t have to deal with Lady Gaga, it’s during Morning Edition.

Nevermind that she’s wearing a red latex Victorian gown to meet the queen (and is surrounded by what looks like a middle school concert band in bulletproof vests), Lady Gaga is an artist.

Shana Naomi Krochmal’s Morning Edition story praises Ms. Gaga as an absolutely scary and very powerful performance artist.

Given Lady Gaga’s background in performance art, I wonder if this whole thing is all just a big, crazy, elaborately costumed performance piece. What if the joke is on us, and she’s gotten rich by pretending to be a lace covered, possibly male pop star. If it is all a show, it’s totally brilliant.

The music at the end of the story is also kind of brilliant. I wonder if she’ll continue in a Freddy Mercury direction – she totally should, as it was kind of awesome.

It’s also no secret that I’m a fan of their mobile strategy. I’ve written about both the Public Radio Player and NPR iPhone apps (both excellent, btw).

So what surprises me is not so much that mocoNews.net is also a fan of NPR’s mobile strategy, but that there exists a fan site dedicated to the mobile Internet.

(Said surprise completely and consciously ignores the fact that I am one half of the staff of a public radio fan blog.)

They put some thought into what an NPR post-podcasting would look like (and we’re not even fully post-radio yet). More importantly, mocoNews finds hints of that future in present projects. What they say about NPR’s new mobile site and their Android app makes me wish I weren’t so loyal to Apple’s phone.

It’s the promise of a truly expansive and ever-evolving NPR experience (and one that I can plug headphones into while walking around) that really has my head spinning right now, and it makes me quite sad that the iPhone App Store’s approval process puts such a hamper on that kind of development.

Oh, and one more thing, I’m fairly certain that mocoNews stole one of our headlines for a related site, PaidContent.net: “Public Radio Dangerously Close To Making Public Radio Obsolete.”

That’s okay guys, you can keep it.

This picture from the NPR homepage:

And for one particular reason given why he’s wearing said shirt: “Back of shirt says, in masking tape, ‘DID NOT PUT ME ON THE LIST OF 50 MOST IMPORTANT RECORDINGS OF THE DECADE. SEND PROTESTS TO BOB BOILEN.’”

If you – and you know who you are – would like to bring sexy and informative back, there is a wide range of NPR shirts available at the NPR shop online. Timberlake’s shirt, unfortunately, is not available. Which is a damn shame, as I would totally wear that. All the time.

And, it’s no t-shirt, but if you’re looking to buy Kerry and I a Christmas present, this radio would not be frowned upon.

Update: The NPR shirt worn by Justin Timberlake is back by popular demand. Enjoy. (Thanks, Andy Carvin.)

There’s a listicle on Monitor Mix today by Lars Gotrich (which can’t possibly be his real name) about musical genres popular from 2000-2009. Some of them are logical – reggaeton, screamo, and grime make some sense.

But some of the others just don’t. Take crabcore. I’m totally convinced that Lars if-that-really-is-your-name Gotrich made this one up. This is a video used in the post that’s apparently a prime example of crabcore at its finest. (Warning: it’s also one of the single worst songs I’ve ever heard, mostly because it can’t commit to one genre.)

I mean, I guess that’s a crab-like stance they’ve all got going on, but the thing that stood out the most about Attack, Attack! was their crazy synchronized moves (the headbanging! the guitar lifting!).

Sadly, crabcore is the bright spot in the story. It seems to be half-researched, walking an awkward, unfunny line between seriousness and satire. If you’re going to do a genre dictionary, it needs to maybe be a series of posts featuring one genre at a time, not a half-assed list of ten genres (some of which aren’t really genres – “funky?” How exactly is “funky” a genre?).

I kept them because I like listening. Because I loved the fact that I had an iPod mini filled with nothing but TAL and audiobooks from David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell. (Serious bad day cure there, even if shuffle hands you one of the sure-to-make-you-cry episodes.)

Because I could throw them all into an audio player and go all day without putting any bandwidth strain on WBEZ’s servers past the initial download.

But I had to make room for music I had just purchased. Thanks, of course, to public radio.

The fact of the matter is, while its search could be greatly improved, TAL’s Web site makes it so much easier to find specific episodes than does having a ton of files lumped in a folder.

I threw it all away. About four gigabytes’ worth of stories around a particular theme. Gone.

The Matthew Crawford Trisler Museum of This American Life Antiquities has closed its doors, and I salute it with two songs I love because of the show:

“Yegelle Tezeta” – Mulatu Aztatke

“Scrapping and Yelling” – Mark Mothersbaugh

And a bonus, a song that, to my knowledge, has not been played on TAL, but which I wouldn’t know without the show – and suits the complete lack of perspective displayed by the whining with which I filled this post

“It Could Be Worse”

Anyway. So while I was eating my mac’n'cheese (with peas in it – is that some weird New York thing?), I was reading this Malcolm Gladwell story that compares football to dog fighting.

One of the major points of the story is that playing football can result in some major long-term brain damage.

NPR has a bit of a follow up to the story today. The House of Representatives heard testimony from doctors, former football players and the NFL today. The only thing to really come of it is that somehow, football has to be made safer so that football players don’t suffer long term, life-altering injuries.

Maybe it’s because I play a sport that involves a helmet (though not one that causes so much head damage), I’m totally interested in this story. There’s a lot that can be done – education of younger players, alteration of the game, a major adjustment in the culture of all things macho and violent.

What do you think should be done?