Thank you for your rebuttal to David A. about Trump. This is the reason journalism is so important; I felt the same way as you but did not have the statistics to back up my feelings. We need journalists who will go out and find the facts to bolster the opinions.
I think that MF that laughed at Beto would still deserve his retort. I’m sure Beto would have rather listened to and appreciated being corrected, rather than getting laughed at. We are all ignorant in some ways, or unknowing, but for someone to laugh at that is, at a minimum, not helpful. I would have changed the retort to “glass bowl” (asshole) as Carolyn Hax uses in her advice column.
Having now read the actual story behind the meme in the “lectern” tweet, that one would seem especially silly. But have to admit I don’t understand it in any event.
Codswallop??? My eyes are bleeding!!! Branch Rickey was one individual who believed that profanity demeaned language and the individual using it. However, as the story goes, when he signed Jackie Robinson, he proceeded to call him every name in the book to make sure he could take it. (With the probable exception of codswalloper.)
I love it when right-wingnuts get all uppity about decorum (Beto’s use of MF, for example): Oh, we’re cheapening public discourse! The coarseness will multiply!
Really? Where have they been for the past six years? How did they miss the gazillion examples of cheapened discourse provided so generously by Dear Orange Leader?
I’m not a right winger or a Trump supporter, but I do think that public discourse is cheapened when profanity is used in publications like PS and other outlets aren’t overtly trying to be tacky and déclassé.
As for Mr. O’Rourke’s use of it? Well, I can’t really say that I object to it much because I really DON’T expect much better from the likes of him. He has a history of behaving like a jackass as a means of trying to attract attention and votes, and this is just another installment. His pretending to be so impassioned about gun violence doesn’t impress me any more than when a Republican pretends to be mortified by abortion.
A good editor would not allow cliches or unoriginal hip expressions. A word “doing work” is one of those. You must be a blast at parties. See what I did there?
I dunno. It's an economical and uncommon enough phrase that would not be improved had I written that the word was "an important qualifier to take note of in that mitigated and softened what appeared at first glance to be a definitive statement in the headline."
I *am* a blast at parties,as it happens, because I hover on the periphery of conversations and interject grammatical corrections. People love it because they come away feeling educated and improved. "Let me know if you're going to invite Eric next time," I hear them tell their hosts, I assume because they want to be sure to attend if I'm going to be there offering helpful guidance.
My joke didn’t land. You ALSO used the now -trite all-purpose on-line come-back “you must be a blast. ...”. I marked my own cleverness with the no longer hip “see what I did there
I finally decided to check how much I was paying for my various digital subscriptions. Tribune 27.72/month; NYTimes, 17; S-T 3.99, WaPo 8.25 (but I pay annually); Detroit Free Press (now that I'm a Michigan resident again) a whopping $49/month. The Tribune is really out of line compared to the Sun-Times or the national papers, but the Free Press is way beyond that. Time to make a call. Thanks for alerting me to look into it.
NYT can be had for $5 per month and WaPo for $4. Just call them once a year an threaten to cancel, propose the same deal as last year, and you'll get it (disclaimer: this year the NYT said the $4 per month I had been enjoying was no longer available, but $5 per month was. OK.)
Maybe no one else gets them either, but we’re the only ones to admit it. I’ll take a crack at “Lectern”: a couple dazed and disheveled looking slackers would be an unlikely audience for anyone speaking at a lectern. Is there any more to it than that? Still mystified by “50% off book sale”.
What most people call a podium is actually a lectern, behind which a speaker stands. A lectern often sits atop a podium. People confuse the names all the time but few people care. A drunk explaining the difference would be amusing.
The 50% off books meme anthropomorphizes the unread books at home being ignored due to the attraction of the on-sale books. He finds the new books too exciting to resist and the books at home are not happy about it.
Thanks for clearing that up. I did figure out “50 % off” before I read your explanation, but it took a while. I wouldn’t have figured out “Lectern” in a million years. I’m not too quick, I guess. Actually, I’m a fucking idiot.
P.S., bonus thanks for using “anthropomorphise” in your reply; until today I would have thought the verb was “anthropomorphose”, but it seems that’s not an actual word.
The educational value of this blog would make my grandfather very proud. Not only did you learn a new word, but many in the audience now appreciate the difference between a podium and lectern.
As a former ChicagoNow blogger, I wrote 147 posts over 8 years, including several award-winning pieces. My unpaid work led to, among other things, a paid opinion column with The Chicago Tribune. And so, when I heard the recent rumblings about ChicagoNow's possible demise, my anxiety (who am I kidding -- my PANIC) get the best of me. I scrambled to find a developer willing to drop everything and try to save my pieces. I paid this individual a hefty sum and lost more than a few chunks of hair hoping my work (as it appeared, including images) could be saved. Mercifully, it was.
There are those who've asked, "Why didn't you save your stuff in case something like this happened?" and "Why didn't you write your original posts in a Word doc then put them on the site?" To be sure, that's what I should have done. But the fact is, I, like many bloggers, started on the platform as a nervous newbie, wondering if anyone was even reading my work. Through the years, I gained confidence, skills, community, and a loyal audience. I was figuring it out as I went, and I appreciated knowing that there were so many of us all writing pieces that were connected to such a prestigious, national newspaper.
I can't tell you how disgusted I am by how unprofessionally -- and, frankly, cruelly -- we were treated as writers when this all went down. I still can't believe it happened the way it did. WHO DOES THAT? Who shows such blatant disregard like that?
I know I speak for many of my ChicagoNow colleagues in that I poured my heart into so many of my posts. I can't begin to imagine if I'd lost them all.
What no one's bothered to mention is that we also had draft folders, and I personally had more unpublished drafts than published pieces. All my drafts are gone. I was never offered a chance to review those drafts or save pieces I might want to share later.
Thank you again for bringing attention to this debacle. It's unconscionable, and my heart breaks for all that was lost. It's immeasurable.
I completely get calling out exaggerated right-wing talking points, it needs to be done, but the left continues to bury themselves on crime.
In the midst of a major widespread violent crime wave, pointing back 30-40 years ago doesn't cut it. It's apples to oranges. Our trauma centers were less advanced, there was a failed war on drugs, and police stats were fudged even more than now. There were less mass shootings, and kids from the city weren't traveling all over to commit crimes.
The "red state murder problem" doesn't work either. Crime is localized, down to the neighborhood. Mississippi is only a high crime state because democratic Jackson is the U.S. top murder capital. 80-90% of the top 100 homicide per capita cities are run by democrats. Jacksonville FL, specifically pointed out by Third Way as a red city problem, isn't even in the top 100.
The Inflation Reduction Act will reduce the deficit by a total of $300 billion over the next 9 years. The student loan forgiveness that Biden announced will cost $313 Billion in 2022. Oh well, easy come, easy go.
Thank you for your rebuttal to David A. about Trump. This is the reason journalism is so important; I felt the same way as you but did not have the statistics to back up my feelings. We need journalists who will go out and find the facts to bolster the opinions.
That’s exactly what I wanted to comment. Thanks, now I don’t have to.
I think that MF that laughed at Beto would still deserve his retort. I’m sure Beto would have rather listened to and appreciated being corrected, rather than getting laughed at. We are all ignorant in some ways, or unknowing, but for someone to laugh at that is, at a minimum, not helpful. I would have changed the retort to “glass bowl” (asshole) as Carolyn Hax uses in her advice column.
Wow, David A., thanks for the glimpse into the alternate reality of Qanon and friends.
Having now read the actual story behind the meme in the “lectern” tweet, that one would seem especially silly. But have to admit I don’t understand it in any event.
I don't either but I'm not even sure I really know what a meme is.
Codswallop??? My eyes are bleeding!!! Branch Rickey was one individual who believed that profanity demeaned language and the individual using it. However, as the story goes, when he signed Jackie Robinson, he proceeded to call him every name in the book to make sure he could take it. (With the probable exception of codswalloper.)
I actually like cod.
I love it when right-wingnuts get all uppity about decorum (Beto’s use of MF, for example): Oh, we’re cheapening public discourse! The coarseness will multiply!
Really? Where have they been for the past six years? How did they miss the gazillion examples of cheapened discourse provided so generously by Dear Orange Leader?
They’re killin’ me! LOL
I’m not a right winger or a Trump supporter, but I do think that public discourse is cheapened when profanity is used in publications like PS and other outlets aren’t overtly trying to be tacky and déclassé.
As for Mr. O’Rourke’s use of it? Well, I can’t really say that I object to it much because I really DON’T expect much better from the likes of him. He has a history of behaving like a jackass as a means of trying to attract attention and votes, and this is just another installment. His pretending to be so impassioned about gun violence doesn’t impress me any more than when a Republican pretends to be mortified by abortion.
A good editor would not allow cliches or unoriginal hip expressions. A word “doing work” is one of those. You must be a blast at parties. See what I did there?
I dunno. It's an economical and uncommon enough phrase that would not be improved had I written that the word was "an important qualifier to take note of in that mitigated and softened what appeared at first glance to be a definitive statement in the headline."
I *am* a blast at parties,as it happens, because I hover on the periphery of conversations and interject grammatical corrections. People love it because they come away feeling educated and improved. "Let me know if you're going to invite Eric next time," I hear them tell their hosts, I assume because they want to be sure to attend if I'm going to be there offering helpful guidance.
My joke didn’t land. You ALSO used the now -trite all-purpose on-line come-back “you must be a blast. ...”. I marked my own cleverness with the no longer hip “see what I did there
It is what it is.
I finally decided to check how much I was paying for my various digital subscriptions. Tribune 27.72/month; NYTimes, 17; S-T 3.99, WaPo 8.25 (but I pay annually); Detroit Free Press (now that I'm a Michigan resident again) a whopping $49/month. The Tribune is really out of line compared to the Sun-Times or the national papers, but the Free Press is way beyond that. Time to make a call. Thanks for alerting me to look into it.
NYT can be had for $5 per month and WaPo for $4. Just call them once a year an threaten to cancel, propose the same deal as last year, and you'll get it (disclaimer: this year the NYT said the $4 per month I had been enjoying was no longer available, but $5 per month was. OK.)
Lectern photo:
Please explain.
Hmmm...guess there's 3 of us out of the loop!
Make that four. I also don’t get “50% off books”.
Wow, really? Who would like to explain the jokes here? Volunteers?
Maybe no one else gets them either, but we’re the only ones to admit it. I’ll take a crack at “Lectern”: a couple dazed and disheveled looking slackers would be an unlikely audience for anyone speaking at a lectern. Is there any more to it than that? Still mystified by “50% off book sale”.
What most people call a podium is actually a lectern, behind which a speaker stands. A lectern often sits atop a podium. People confuse the names all the time but few people care. A drunk explaining the difference would be amusing.
The 50% off books meme anthropomorphizes the unread books at home being ignored due to the attraction of the on-sale books. He finds the new books too exciting to resist and the books at home are not happy about it.
God bless you, sir. I thank you. Peter Sagal, bereft that his joke didn't go over but soldiering on somehow, thanks you.
Thanks for clearing that up. I did figure out “50 % off” before I read your explanation, but it took a while. I wouldn’t have figured out “Lectern” in a million years. I’m not too quick, I guess. Actually, I’m a fucking idiot.
P.S., bonus thanks for using “anthropomorphise” in your reply; until today I would have thought the verb was “anthropomorphose”, but it seems that’s not an actual word.
The educational value of this blog would make my grandfather very proud. Not only did you learn a new word, but many in the audience now appreciate the difference between a podium and lectern.
As a former ChicagoNow blogger, I wrote 147 posts over 8 years, including several award-winning pieces. My unpaid work led to, among other things, a paid opinion column with The Chicago Tribune. And so, when I heard the recent rumblings about ChicagoNow's possible demise, my anxiety (who am I kidding -- my PANIC) get the best of me. I scrambled to find a developer willing to drop everything and try to save my pieces. I paid this individual a hefty sum and lost more than a few chunks of hair hoping my work (as it appeared, including images) could be saved. Mercifully, it was.
There are those who've asked, "Why didn't you save your stuff in case something like this happened?" and "Why didn't you write your original posts in a Word doc then put them on the site?" To be sure, that's what I should have done. But the fact is, I, like many bloggers, started on the platform as a nervous newbie, wondering if anyone was even reading my work. Through the years, I gained confidence, skills, community, and a loyal audience. I was figuring it out as I went, and I appreciated knowing that there were so many of us all writing pieces that were connected to such a prestigious, national newspaper.
I can't tell you how disgusted I am by how unprofessionally -- and, frankly, cruelly -- we were treated as writers when this all went down. I still can't believe it happened the way it did. WHO DOES THAT? Who shows such blatant disregard like that?
I know I speak for many of my ChicagoNow colleagues in that I poured my heart into so many of my posts. I can't begin to imagine if I'd lost them all.
What no one's bothered to mention is that we also had draft folders, and I personally had more unpublished drafts than published pieces. All my drafts are gone. I was never offered a chance to review those drafts or save pieces I might want to share later.
Thank you again for bringing attention to this debacle. It's unconscionable, and my heart breaks for all that was lost. It's immeasurable.
I completely get calling out exaggerated right-wing talking points, it needs to be done, but the left continues to bury themselves on crime.
In the midst of a major widespread violent crime wave, pointing back 30-40 years ago doesn't cut it. It's apples to oranges. Our trauma centers were less advanced, there was a failed war on drugs, and police stats were fudged even more than now. There were less mass shootings, and kids from the city weren't traveling all over to commit crimes.
The "red state murder problem" doesn't work either. Crime is localized, down to the neighborhood. Mississippi is only a high crime state because democratic Jackson is the U.S. top murder capital. 80-90% of the top 100 homicide per capita cities are run by democrats. Jacksonville FL, specifically pointed out by Third Way as a red city problem, isn't even in the top 100.
https://theweek.com/us/1012196/white-house-officials-and-left-wing-media-critics-convinced-themselves-that-the-media
https://www.city-journal.org/third-ways-misdirection-on-violent-crime
Own the mistakes and move forward, before we end up with more Trumpism.
The Inflation Reduction Act will reduce the deficit by a total of $300 billion over the next 9 years. The student loan forgiveness that Biden announced will cost $313 Billion in 2022. Oh well, easy come, easy go.