McFreedom

Alright, I know it's an entertainment piece and unconsequential, but what's with this AP story about John Cleese's new wine special? There aren't many facts in the piece, but one of them is wrong, and obviously wrong to almost anyone that lives in California (you know, like thirty-five million people): "...Cleese told The Associated Press in a phone interview from his Santa Barbara, Calif. home -- which is nestled close to the state's wine country." Yeah, like Charlotte, NC is "nestled close" to Washington, DC. It's nearly 400 miles from Santa Barbara to Napa!

East-coasters often fail to understand just how big California is. No doubt the reporter that wrote this story assumed that anything in California is "nestled close to the state's wine country." I remember, not long after I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, a colleague from New York state called to say he was coming out for a conference, and that perhaps we could get together for dinner, one night. "Great," I told him. Where are you staying?" "Well, the conference is in Los Angeles," he replied. When I pointed out that LA is a six hour drive, at the very least, he lost interest in getting together one night. There's a reason why the nation's premiere discount airline is called Southwest - there's a lot of space between cities out here.

Just yet another example of the phenomenon that I've never seen a story I knew the particulars of and haven't seen a significant error of comission or omission. If you think about it, you probably can say the same. Which makes you wonder how many errors there are in every single story you read that you don't know the particulars of...