In Which Jazz Solves the Condom Crisis

Some of you fans of the One True Tami (blessed be Her name) may not be aware of this, but when I'm not hanging out with Tami and solving the world's problems, I publish the odd article here and there on a variety of subjects, largely political in nature. This has, on occasion, resulted in my being asked to weigh in with a comment by some of the major news services. I've been interviewed over the last few years by NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and Fox, for example. This weekend I added another outlet to my resume, but not for a subject which I would have liked.

While I generally try to write about serious topics, I'm rather playful and snarky by nature and I will, on occasion, write some light hearted, humorous pieces. Such was the case this weekend when I tossed up what was essentially a throwaway piece on a new NIH study on condoms... specifically why guys don't like wearing them. (Duh.) It seems like a rather silly subject to spend taxpayer money on.

Well, getting back to the original premise of this entry, you'll never guess what happened next. ABC News contacted me and wanted to do an interview. About what, you might ask? I've published recent pieces on Iran, Iraq, health care reform, the economic crisis and NASA. But what did ABC want to talk to me about? Yep. Condoms.

Because I am, above and beyond all else, a narcissistic media whore, I agreed to the idea at once. I should also note, in a lame attempt at self defense, that I had a double root canal last week and was on codeine this weekend for a fair amount of pain in my jaw. This is not, as you might imagine, a good combination for critical thinking and wise judgment.

During the course of the interview I also forgot one of the key rules of such engagements: you never get too comfortable with the interviewer and begin joking around. If you do, that's the one quote they will snag out of the whole thing and run with.

To bring this tale to its tragic end, you can read the full article ABC did from our interview at the ABC News web site. When you skip forward to page two of the article, you will find this quote from yours truly prominently displayed.

"Men wear them because they are slightly more desirable than a combination of embarrassing diseases, 20 years of child support payments and death," Shaw said. "And if you took the death part out of the equation, a frightening number of us would probably still roll the dice on it if the lady was willing."

There isn't the least indication that this was something of a tongue in cheek comment.

But hey... they spelled my name correctly and got the right link to our news portal. According to the basic rules of media, that's all you're allowed to hope for anyway.