FWIW
if i were translating for mom, (cuz you all know the text chat acronyms, right?), this'd be entitled "for what it's worth". if i were translating for the corporate owners of the lowell sun, it would be entitled "i'm so far past 'fire campanini' that there's nothing left to do but laugh when anyone else becomes aware of the notion. we're all there, believe me.
the "paper of record" (nods and quizzical looks towards the mr mill city boys who have gone unfortunately silent of late) publishes some of the least professional editorial content available outside of the supermarket checkout aisle. (i've been meaning to ask the folks at market basket, who are usually pretty organized about such things, why they insist on stocking the one bunch there by the registers, and the other nearby the entrance, but, hey, i'm not in grocery retail, so maybe there's something else i'm missing about that). the editorial news choices are all-too-often illiterate, ill-informed, and biased to the point of caricature, and the editorials are even worse. i told a friend the other day that i could read ann coulter's syndicated columns right there in my local paper, (he's a republican, even), and he cracked up for five minutes straight. when i mentioned that the complete set included kathryn jean lopez, i thought he was going to pee his pants laughing. "are they [meaning the paper] serious?" (that's a direct quote).
i save face only by telling him and other people i know that i read the sun like most folks read publications like mad magazine. (unfortunately, there's no fold-in, though when you crumple it all up it does just as good a job in the packing box as most other actual newspapers). want to know why i read the sun, really? rob mills. lisa redmond. (i'm guessing there are more writers there that i like, but i can't think of any off the top of my head, since the others i knew by name all got fired recently so they could afford to continue publishing peter lucas' nonsense columns three days a week).
yeah, i know i should cancel. i really do. for now, though, i satisfy myself by simply talking other people out of bothering to start their habit in the first place. (it's surprisingly easy to convince them--i just show them my paper, and when they stop laughing, they tell me they get it, and by "it" i don't mean the paper).
"evidently" was an adverb offered in today's editorial to sum up an 8-paragraph screed against everything and everybody who isn't charlie baker, used to explain the "dead heat" in the massachusetts gubernatorial contest. except, when i go to actual news sites to corroborate the "facts", i find out things like, for example, "patrick's lead steady, up 5 over baker" (WBUR, citing a rasmussen telephone survey), or "latest poll shows patrick widening lead over baker" (WHDH in cahoots with suffolk university from their latest joint poll), and i'm wondering exactly who is zooming whom here. (note the proper use of object pronouns, examples of which are far less likely to be found in the editorial copy of the lowell sun, but, hey, there i go piling on...) the evidence, as far as i can interpret, is simply that the lowell sun will, as a function of its questionably literate and highly-biased editor in chief, print anything it pleases regardless of fact, and leave us wondering whether it's intended to be comedy, or self-satire.
i'm still pulling for comedy, but, well, you know about me and my judgment...
the "paper of record" (nods and quizzical looks towards the mr mill city boys who have gone unfortunately silent of late) publishes some of the least professional editorial content available outside of the supermarket checkout aisle. (i've been meaning to ask the folks at market basket, who are usually pretty organized about such things, why they insist on stocking the one bunch there by the registers, and the other nearby the entrance, but, hey, i'm not in grocery retail, so maybe there's something else i'm missing about that). the editorial news choices are all-too-often illiterate, ill-informed, and biased to the point of caricature, and the editorials are even worse. i told a friend the other day that i could read ann coulter's syndicated columns right there in my local paper, (he's a republican, even), and he cracked up for five minutes straight. when i mentioned that the complete set included kathryn jean lopez, i thought he was going to pee his pants laughing. "are they [meaning the paper] serious?" (that's a direct quote).
i save face only by telling him and other people i know that i read the sun like most folks read publications like mad magazine. (unfortunately, there's no fold-in, though when you crumple it all up it does just as good a job in the packing box as most other actual newspapers). want to know why i read the sun, really? rob mills. lisa redmond. (i'm guessing there are more writers there that i like, but i can't think of any off the top of my head, since the others i knew by name all got fired recently so they could afford to continue publishing peter lucas' nonsense columns three days a week).
yeah, i know i should cancel. i really do. for now, though, i satisfy myself by simply talking other people out of bothering to start their habit in the first place. (it's surprisingly easy to convince them--i just show them my paper, and when they stop laughing, they tell me they get it, and by "it" i don't mean the paper).
"evidently" was an adverb offered in today's editorial to sum up an 8-paragraph screed against everything and everybody who isn't charlie baker, used to explain the "dead heat" in the massachusetts gubernatorial contest. except, when i go to actual news sites to corroborate the "facts", i find out things like, for example, "patrick's lead steady, up 5 over baker" (WBUR, citing a rasmussen telephone survey), or "latest poll shows patrick widening lead over baker" (WHDH in cahoots with suffolk university from their latest joint poll), and i'm wondering exactly who is zooming whom here. (note the proper use of object pronouns, examples of which are far less likely to be found in the editorial copy of the lowell sun, but, hey, there i go piling on...) the evidence, as far as i can interpret, is simply that the lowell sun will, as a function of its questionably literate and highly-biased editor in chief, print anything it pleases regardless of fact, and leave us wondering whether it's intended to be comedy, or self-satire.
i'm still pulling for comedy, but, well, you know about me and my judgment...
posted by kad barma at 4:15 PM
4 Comments:
OTOH
Sunday we had Nat Hentoff's column "Obama the Master Spy—of Americans". You don't get Nat Hentoff in The Boston Globe (or even in The Village Voice after their recent cutbacks).
By the way, speaking of The Globe, yesterday we cancelled our subscription, but stuck with The Sun. After some family discussion it was agreed that the news was old by the time it dropped short of the porch and the comics were available on line. I will miss Joan Vennochi and Derrick Z Jackson and Scott Lehigh and I will miss getting riled at some of the clueless things James Carroll says on Mondays, but it is going expire as an expense on our budget.
And, the Sun delivery person normally gets it within 18 inches of the front door. I hope the lack of seeing the competitor on Sunday mornings won't cause him to slack off, although usually The Sun arrives before The Globe. Oh, and Martha thinks that the billing department at The Globe is not too conscientious. And, I still retain a prejudice developed when I moved here 16 years ago, that often The Sun has more current, if thinner, national and international coverage. And, it is the local "paper of record".
But, YMMV.
Regards — Cliff
you didn't really and actually just say that you respect the national and international coverage in the lowell sun, even if only for timeliness, did you? really???
first must be said "http://www.bbc.co.uk/", and second that i cannot possibly imagine a poorer use of my investment in local journalism (aka my fading lowell sun subscription) than to waste the slightest bit of effort, resource and/or column-inch space on national and international news.
as for the globe, well, telling me that republicans aren't so bad as democrats doesn't win them my vote, either.
Well, the Beeb has its own problems and slants. For good international news I turn to the IHT, and have for decades. Sure, they are owned by the NYT, but they still seem to have a dash of independence.
I don't read The Sun for national and international news. Not with Drudge and Al Jazzera around. I am just noting they are more timely than Brand X.
And, I would never ask you to vote for The Sun by comparing it with The Globe. I am just saying that a Nat Hentoff column once in a while redeems a lot of sins.
Regards — Cliff
fair enough about hentoff. a subscription to the economist can go a long way, as well.
the sobering realization is that someone with an 8 1/2 x 11 inch piece of paper could probably capture my entire interest in any one issue of the sun, especially if they were judicious about editing and used both sides. the fact that the potential content of that 8 1/2 x 11 inch piece of paper remains such a mystery to the present editor is the real tragedy here.
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