Today in GAAAAAAAH!

The baby names are back! It kind of pains me to acknowledge that I've been writing about the damn baby names since before the dissertation was finished, but at this point, it'd be ungrateful to deny the value of deranged racist paranoia to the overall scholarly project. And this time, Drudge seems to be committing a couple of basic violations of the way news works. 

First, for you junior-league players, is the axiom that heds are drawn from the lede: If the reporter made something a priority, the hed writer either follows in train or -- should the reporter have somehow* missed the point -- fixes the lede so it reflects the real news. Thus, if you link to the Mirror, which kicks off with Posh and Becks:

Celebrities continue to be a source of inspiration for new parents choosing names for their children.

Coleen and Wayne Rooney's name choices have been extremely popular this year, with twice as many babies called Kit and Klay compared to last year.

But Olivia is officially the most popular name for girls and Oliver the most popular for boys.

... your job is to capture at least some of the Roonsian magic.

More importantly, though, your hed needs to reflect the news itself.  In that Muhammad has been sneaking up on Jack (or Oliver) for years on end, your hed really ought to tell the audience how today is different from yesterday. "Muhammad in second" might have been a big deal when he was closing in, but -- unless the tables are fabricated -- the real story here seems to be that Muhammad has been knocked out of the top spot.

You'd think that might be cause for dancing in the street for Drudge and his ilk. Perhaps he's still trying to figure out how to give credit to his tangerine master.

* Shock horror outrage

Of names and dog whistles

It's not even that original, you guys -- Drudge appears to have borrowed the "Micah X" theme from a weekend Sun cover. But it is another nice illustration of how to dog-whistle in a hed while keeping your feet just inside the chalk lines of news practice.

As noted last week, being a "headline name" means you're recognized for who you are (Trump eats babies) rather than where you live (Ferndale man eats babies) or go to school (Kansas sophomore eats babies). The perp in an especially heinous crime can move into that category pretty fast, though "McVeigh" is more likely to make the leap than "Johnson."

Given names follow an even tighter rule -- unless, of course, they sound like Muhammad. "Micah" is a little too ambiguous to make the cut, but what a lucky break for Drudge that the middle name was Xavier: hence, Micah X! (You know, like notorious Muslim bandleader X Cugat scary person Malcolm X.) "X" was so evocative that one of the downpage heds had to be tweaked as well:

Choosing X as a surname predates the 1960s; here's how the World's Greatest Newspaper described Elijah Muhammad and colleagues, arrested on sedition charges in a 1942 draft-evasion case (complete with Flying Verb subhed):

Assume Oriental Names

...Many of them have assumed oriental names and some of their followers use only "X" or "XX" as surnames.

The (ahem) Oriental influence is further explained:

Have Plenty Of Money
"We have only scratched the surface," said a federal official. "It seems certain that Japanese money has been going to these organizations. None of these people has any visible means of support. The 12 leaders we took into custody Sunday and Monday have lavish and expensive costumes and have plenty of money. Even their followers, some of whom are poorly dressed, seem to have some means."

In those days, kids, the deranged right didn't have Drudge to spread its light across the darkened plain, It had to rely on a secret network made up of the biggest papers in the country.