Media notes

There were several good (i.e., weird or sick) stories in the Denver dailies today.

Here's one from the Post: Suspect convicted in homeless murder:

A man who stabbed a homeless man 31 times was convicted today of second-degree murder. . . .

[Curtis Gordon] Adams committed the murder in front of his former girlfriend. Investigators say he did it to prove to her his devotion.

Adams had moved out of Patricia Geer's home a few days before the attack.

According to investigators, minutes before he stabbed Aschraft, Adams stood outside her home and declared:

"What is about to happen is your fault."

He'd been pushing Ashcraft in the homeless man's wheelchair.

According to testimony, Adams started stabbing Ashcraft in the middle of the street.

"Dedicated to the one I love. I'd die or kill for you," Adams shouted at Geer as he was led to a Denver police car after the stabbing on Milwaukee Street in Denver's Swansea neighborhood.

To prove to her his devotion.

The Post also carried this Knight-Ridder story: Mediocre doctoring the norm:

Washington - U.S. patients receive proper medical care from doctors and nurses only 55 percent of the time, regardless of their race, income, education or insurance status, according to a national study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. . . .

In a performance review of preventive services and care for 30 chronic conditions, including hypertension, diabetes and heart disease, researchers found that it's almost a coin flip as to whether patients get the recommended care from doctors and nurses - even though the standard treatments are widely known.

Then there was this remarkable paragraph:

In addition, the study found that blacks and Latinos were slightly more likely to get proper levels of care than whites, by about 3.5 percentage points.

Doesn't seem so "slight" to me as an indigenous Appalachian. Racism! No, wait, the study's lead author discounts that part of the study:

Those findings don't counter previous studies that found wide disparities in access to health care for minorities and low-income people, Asch said. In fact, he said, those disparities are a "serious, well-documented problem," particularly when it comes to complicated surgical procedures.

Finally, the Post's temporary TV critic has a squib about that horrible Burger King king:

Burger creep: Let's hope Burger King has retired the ads featuring the weird guy in the king mask. The bit where's he's superimposed on Steve Young's face for the quarterback's legendary scramble against the Minnesota Vikings in 1988 was kind of cool. But it sure looks like he's leering at the Whopperettes in the commercial that ran on the Super Bowl.

No, the Steve Young bit was creepy, too.

What about the News?

They had a big story, at least compared to the possible retirement of a masked psycho pitchking: "An orange. A grape. An orange. A grape."

There was much more in both papers about all kinds of stuff, some of it possibly worth reading. But Bloodsport is on now, so go look for yourself.

Update: The Drunkablog will apologize unreservedly for using a "mountain folk" for purposes of humor--as soon as Leonard Pitts does. (via Romenesko)

(Credit: "Mountain folk" shot from Lonny Shavelson.)