Paul Krugman nails the media, accurately. A strange story of a woman who disappeared in her own home. And Lochte slays Phelps in the pool.

This is one of my biggest complaints about the national media in the past 15 years: They are constantly putting forth this “false equivalency.” What I mean is, even if one side of the story is SO clearly making more sense, and more truthful, than the other side, the Wolf Blitzers and Brian Williamses of the world present both sides as if they’re exactly the same.
And it drives me up a freaking wall (as it does Bill Maher, who frequently rails about it on his show). It’s happening now with this debt ceiling crisis, as Barack Obama has bent over backwards and then back again trying to get a deal done, offering everything but naming Sasha Obama’s first-born child John.
Meanwhile, the Republicans, who have once again successfully moved the middle of the debate so far to the right that it only looks like the middle because they’ve taken such an extreme position (you followed all that, right?), refuse to budge on anything.
And yet, the media continues to portray this as a civil disagreement between two sides.
Paul Krugman, the brilliant New York Times columnist, put up a blog post Tuesday that sums this up perfectly. Check it out please; he makes the point far more eloquently than I could.

**And now, for no particular reason except that I stumbled upon it on YouTube Tuesday night, is Billy Crystal, as Sammy Davis Jr., from the 1980s. People forget how utterly brilliant Billy was:

The best stories are the ones you can get lost in.
They may not have the most profound meaning or carry the most important news of the day, but they suck you in and make you think about how things happen.

Michael Kruse, a very talented writer for the St. Petersburg Times (who is leaving the paper soon for a new gig, I hear) wrote this heartbreaking story about a woman in Brevard County, Fla. named Kathryn Norris, who died in her house and wasn’t discovered for 16 months.
She literally, as Kruse writes, “went missing inside her own home.” It’s a really good story that’s worth your time today.

**Finally, my man Ryan Lochte, a six-time Olympic medalist in swimming who I covered (fairly obsessively) for four years at the Daytona Beach News-Journal, scored another huge win over Michael Phelps Tuesday. At the FINA World Championships he beat Phelps in the 200 freestyle final, the third time he’s beaten the greatest swimmer ever in the last year.
Lochte is ascending, while Phelps is finally coming down from the mountain. It’s been so cool to watch this rivalry develop the last few years, as Lochte got closer and closer to Phelps’ heels. For the moment, he’s definitely caught him.
My last story for my old newspaper (sniff, sniff) ran last Sunday, a profile of Lochte previewing this week’s worlds. If you’re a swimming fan, check it out here, and here’s video of the race:

The black man in the White House hosts a Seder. And a Twitter feed worth you time

Well, I knew there’d be all kinds of firsts in this White House. But this one, I never saw coming.

With it being Passover this week, there are seders being held around the world, as Jews celebrate their heritage, eat matzoh, and see relatives we haven’t seen in a long time.

And at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, home of the first African-American President, there was a seder, too.

Last I checked, Barack and Michelle Obama don’t go to synagogue, nor are they Jewish. But it’s a cool story about how they came to have a seder at the White House. (I wonder if Sasha or Malia found the hidden afikomen this year).

Check out the details from the New York Times here.

**So I’m not really into the whole Twitter thing. Frankly, I think Facebook updates, and this blog, are as far as my friends and family need to go with the minutiae of my life. What would I tweet? “Went to Walgreens tonite, noticed they had Tostitos on sale. Mmmm.” Thrilling.

Fact is, most Twitter feeds are boring. But I found a very useful and interesting one. It’s called Long Reads, and it links to some of the best long-form journalism in newspapers and magazines out there. Long stories are allegedly a dying art since no one has time to read them anymore, except in study after study it’s been shown that people on newspaper sites often click on the lengthiest stories the most.

Anyway, just in the last week on twitter.com/longreads I’ve found a funny Playboy interview with Sarah Silverman, a great Washington Post story about a Muslim-American soldier and his adventures in the wake of the Fort Hood shooting, and a cool GQ story about the CIA.

Check it out if you have time.