Another Angle on the Inside Story

She didn't think so. She also worried that reporters would write about unnewsworthy "problems" they might observe, problems that would be solved long before the public needed to know about them.

She added: "It actually would be a cool idea. But there'd have to be, like with the military, some agreement about confidentiality and what could be shared and couldn't be shared."

It was the Pentagon's idea to embed reporters in Iraq. The brass hoped it would result in more favorable stories. That isn't always the case, but you do tend to bond with the people who are responsible for keeping you alive in a dangerous environment.

Now, the DMV isn't the Sunni Triangle, no matter what it was like the last time you tried to renew your driver's license. So I guess my suggestion is a little facetious. And good reporters are able to ferret out scoops even when spokespeople stonewall.

But I bet you'd get entirely different sorts of stories -- more nuanced, more immediate, more reflective of the rank and file-- if journalists could embed in more places than just Fallujah.

Whaddya say, bunkmate?

Clothes Call

Earlier this month, Sharyn Bowman noticed that two trees outside her Silver Spring home were bearing an odd sort of fruit. One day there'd be a sweat shirt hanging from the pine tree. Another day there'd be a jacket nestled in the branches of her yew.

Sometimes the article was under the tree. Sometimes it hung from the tree itself. Sometimes the article would be there for a few days, until Sharyn would gather it up and throw it out. Other times it would be there in the morning and then have disappeared by the afternoon.

What was going on?

I would like to say that Sharyn and her husband, Mel , solved the mystery by setting up a hidden camera triggered by a laser beam, but the truth came much more easily. Their discovery shines a light into that most interesting of creatures: the American teenager.

There is a school bus stop outside the couple's house. One afternoon, Mel watched from his window as a high school boy got off the bus, walked over to the tree and took the jacket that had been sitting there all day.

"My husband ran out and talked to him," Sharyn said. "Well, he said he hangs his jacket in the tree just so he wouldn't have to take it to school."

The boy -- "a nice kid," Sharyn said -- apologized, and it hasn't happened again. He explained that the trees were "convenient" places for him to stash unwanted items for the day.

Parents, let this be a lesson: Just because your teenager answers affirmatively when you ask if he has his coat when he leaves for school, don't assume that he's actually going to take it there.

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