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I received a clipping from our paper from a reader today. Headline: "Red Wing couple are found dead."
The reader circled the word "are" and scribbled, "Is this good English?"
Yes, it is.
(Personally, I'd rewrite the headline to avoid that construction, which probably strikes many people as incorrect.)
Whatever your political persuasion, you'll be interested in what our always-quotable Congresswoman from Minnesota's 6th District had to say on the Hannity show this week -- and if you don't like the fact that I'm linking to Talking Points Memo, go to some other political site on the Web for the same information -- the quotes are the same. Among them:
And this:
Hannity: The last great hope of man on this Earth.
There's plenty more, as there always is with Rep. Bachmann. The point I would make, and a few others have made it recently: What if Rep. Ellison, or Rep. Walz, were to call for revolution and talk in these apocalyptic terms? First of all, it would make headlines because it would be so out of character; in Rep. Bachmann's case, this stuff is so entirely in character that it no longer makes news.
But seriously, a quote even from Bachmann along the lines of, "we are at the point, Sean, of revolution," ought to make news and either she's found to be within the bounds of reasonable political discourse, or she's declared, once and for all, at best, a nut.
Call me ignorant, but I don't believe I've ever seen this quaint logo for IBM before -- after deadline, I'll look into when it dates from, if in fact it's legit.
Not quite from the golden age of corporate design, but it's more charming than the current logo.
We're continuing to dig around for local numbers on the expected layoffs today...any help from readers is appreciated.
Who cares, first of all, but here's a note from a reader regarding our pro wrestling story on the front of sports yesterday:
Generally, I'd agree with Bob that if we raise a question in a news story -- using an acronym such as ODB -- we should probably answer it. In this case, the whole gaudy event is something of a put-on and I don't feel bad at all about not explaining what ODB is short for. There are rock bands that we write about with odd and obscene names and we don't generally dig into the deeper meanings there, either.
The average reader can conclude that a performer in TNA wrestling (a ridiculous and gamey acronym to begin with) probably has a stage name that's inappropriate for a family newspaper.
Much as I love Colbert and Stewart, this is madness:
Twenty-one percent (21%) characterize programs like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show as at least somewhat influential in shaping their political opinions, including seven percent (7%) who say they are Very Influential. Most (70%) say they are not influential, with 44% who say they are not at all influential.
Americans under 40 again are far more likely than older Americans to view programs like this as influential. Fourteen percent (14%) of those 18-29 say they are Very Influential, compared to just one percent (1%) of those over age 65.
Younger Americans also tend to think the programs make them more informed about news events, while older adults are more skeptical.
Yes, "Colbert Report" and "The Daily Show" are hilarious, love 'em both. Let's hope their fans develop a taste for genuine news also.
Good question from a reader:
Actually, we had an early release on the jobless rate information at about 9 a.m. Tuesday. We still could have squeezed it into Tuesday's print edition, in short form at least, but an editor made the decision to deal with it for online and for Wednesday print. Better choice would have been to get it in Tuesday's paper, no matter how short, but we have to make a lot of last-minute choices of that kind...can't win 'em all.
I had my monthly confrontation with "lie, lay, lain" this morning...one of those grammatical quicksands that I'll never entirely escape. I like the lead to this item from the American Heritage Book of English Usage:
The Minnesota State High School League, like most/all high school sports leagues, has a tight grip on media rights and access at sports events, to this ridiculous extent: To have a reporter at a state tournament game writing a live blog, we have to pay a hundred bucks.
One hundred dollars to have a guy writing on a laptop.
Sure, in a way it's like broadcasting the game -- but not much like it. It's typing, for cryin' out loud -- excellent typing, posted to the world and interactive with readers, but still -- how far will state high school leagues go to control reporting on a school-sponsored, taxpayer-supported event?
They go even further in Wisconsin, Illinois and Pennsylvania, among states where high school leagues are leveraging media access for all its worth.
There's another attraction in the P-B blogosophere -- called Brighter Side, it's a digest of stories in the P-B that tell of promising signs and positive developments in the economy, the Rochester area and the world at large -- "good news" stories, whether hard news or features, to get your day started right, or to restore perspective after a tough day at work.
We'll be fine-tuning this project for a few weeks, then likely moving it into the print edition as well. Any help you can offer during this beta phase is appreciated!
Here's a reader comment regarding Wednesday's print edition story on the Tuesday Rochester school board meeting:
A few observations:
-- First, hats off to DeeDee for allowing her name to be posted...I typically ask readers who send notes to me whether it's OK to post their comments with their names...personally, I think that qualifies me as a nice guy, because any correspondence with a journalist must be understood to be fair game for publication. I asked DeeDee if she cared whether I posted her name here and she said, "Be my guest."
-- The "hood" comment clearly was a provocative comment by Jackie Johnson, a prominent Rochester community leader, and it was worth reporting.
-- It was provocative, but no more provocative than hundreds of comments made -- anonymously -- about Dallemand during his tenure. Johnson had the courage to stand up and speak to an important issue in a public forum.
-- While I wasn't at the meeting, I can't imagine that Johnson said or implied that "anyone who criticizes" Dallemand is a racist. Assuming her comment was directed at people who attack Dallemand anonymously online, it's beyond dispute that some/many of those comments are racially charged if not explicitly racist. While other politicians and public officials take their share of lumps online -- at our site and others -- it's striking how racially charged and inappropriate many of the comments are, involving Dallemand.
-- I'll also point out that the Post-Bulletin, yours truly and others in the media take our share of lumps, just like the politicians and bureaucrats. You have to have a thick skin to be in the public arena.
-- Previous superintendents certainly took their lumps, and as this reader correctly says, Dallemand is not beyond criticism. His record is fair game, his desk is fair game, his communication style, etc. It's the venomous and clearly racially charged, anonymous nature of some criticism regarding Dallemand that has people like Johnson concerned -- appropriately so.
-- I'll repeat that last point: Superintendent Dallemand is not beyond criticism, nor is the school board for how they're running the Rochester public schools. They've given the community plenty to agree or disagree with.
It's all about what form that criticism takes, where and how it's expressed, and whether there are other agendas at work beneath the cloak of anonymity.
Final comment: You'd think Dallemand would get props from his critics for waiving the roughly $8,200 raise he was up for this week. At least a few online readers did.
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