Long Live The Newspaper

Are newspapers still in trouble? I think that they are, but I haven't heard much about it lately. I have noticed that newspapers are kind of becoming a little more Internet-y, though. I guess it's their way of trying to keep up. I can't say I don't appreciate their effort, but we have the Internet for that sort of stuff.

Here's a correction that the New York Times felt the need to make note of. I really don't know that any of us would have noticed the error, nor given a fat rat's ass about it. But for those of you who are really sticklers for things like the origin of the name "Orcrist the Goblin Cleaver" (which was apparently what some Mets pitcher named one of his bats), then this correction is for you.

Coming to us courtesy of the Salt Lake Tribune (and my dear friend Julie on Facebook), we have a little blurb about a woman who used to be a stripper, but now does "Pole Dancing For Jesus". I'm pretty sure that she was dancing for Jesus when she was a stripper, but at that time, it was pronounced "Hay-Seuss".

In need for an invisible man? That's right. An invisible man. According to the newspaper announcement/advertisement/crackpot below, one is for hire. And yes, you bet your ass that I have emailed him and inquired as to his location, his rates and his sanity. I'm waiting to hear back. Feel free to send him your own email with your own requests. We can compare quotes.

Today I learned that the Yiddish language Ultra-Orthodox daily newspaper called Der Tzitung felt that their policy of keeping photos of women out of their publication (for fear of sexually exciting Hasidic men, of course) took precedence over the presence of Hillary Clinton in the photo. So they got rid of her. Personally, I think that our way of getting rid of bin Laden was much more impressive than their way of getting rid of Hillary Clinton. I also think that our getting rid of bin Laden was much more necessary than erasing Hillary Clinton from a historic moment. Ok, then.

The picture below isn't from a newspaper, but it's in black and white and I'm trying to extend the length of this post, so it's being included. From 1982, an advertisement for a 10MB hard disk drive for the extremely outlandish price of $3,495 (which I believe was also the MSRP for the Yugo when it came out).

And finally, not because it has anything to do with newspapers, but just because it's been bugging me and I'm hoping that I will be able to find some answers. If anyone knows who the shirt below is made by, I'd really appreciate it if you could let me know. Thanks.

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The Unlikely, Felonious Candidate

As Scott pointed out in my post the other day about the debacle that is Alvin Greene in South Carolina, I left out the best part. That part being that the aforementioned Mr. Greene was charged with one felony count of, what the AP reports to be, "...showing obscene Internet photos to a University of South Carolina student, then talking about going to her room at a university dorm." Now, I don't know if that's the official charge (it seems rather lengthy) or if that's just what happened, but the bottom line is that our buddy, Clem, here, is the nominee for a Senate seat and does weird things in his spare time. Allegedly.

Let's look into the accusation a little more closely. Again referencing the story over at the AP, it would seem that a one 19-year old Camille McCoy, who is described as a "rising sophomore at the University of South Carolina", alleges that while in a computer lab, Greene sat down next to her "...and asked her to look at his screen, which showed a pornographic website." First of all, what in the world is a "rising sophomore"? Is that supposed to imply that she will one day be a junior after she "rises" in the ranks? Seriously, what's up with that little moniker there, AP guys? A rising sophomore. OK, fine. Call her what you want.

But second, what's with the being able to view porn in the university computer labs? Most of the people I know can't even view Facebook from work because their fascist employers have blocked access to it (not to mention anything streaming, which sounds like it would probably include porn sites). You know what college kids want to do in computer labs? Look at porn, that is correct. You know what college kids want to do when they're not in computer labs? Look at porn, that is correct. You know what half of the Internet consists of? Porn, that is correct. Now, I'm not blaming the university, but I am suggesting that they block the porn.

But back to the allegations (which I have no reason to disbelieve that he actually did, as he seems dim enough to have pulled such a stunt). Who does that? You sit down next to some chick and pull yourself up some good ol' computer porn and say, "Look at this! Look at it!" (I'm not certain of the specific vernacular that was used. I'm merely paraphrasing.) That's a strange ranger right there. Granted, the mascot of the University of South Carolina is the gamecock, it's still no excuse for this sort of behavior.

The article goes on to document that, according to Miss McCoy, "I said, 'That's offensive,' and he sat there laughing...It was very disgusting." Hold on there, sweetheart. You look at his screen o'porn and you said, "That's offensive"? No, you didn't! What 18-year old would say it like that? You mean to tell me that you didn't call him a pervert? You didn't shout out "Oh, my God!" (Or "OMG!" as kids your age are pretty into the whole texting thing.) I find it difficult to believe that you said, "That's offensive." I'm not saying it wasn't offensive. It certainly sounds offensive. I'm just saying I highly doubt that's how you handled it.

She goes on to state that "He said, 'Let's go to your room now.' It was kind of scary. He's a pretty big boy. He could've overpowered me." Could have overpowered you? Right there in the middle of the computer lab? Granted, the kinds of folks that are usually hanging around the computer labs aren't exactly your broad shouldered, strapping lads or anything like that. But I find it hard to believe that's what went through your head at the time. Sounds like she handles things very pleasantly in her little world.

I found this next part to be the most interesting, yet it's the part that's getting the least attention. "McCoy, who is from Charleston, said she was stunned to learn that the same man she later identified from a photo lineup was running for office, much less had won a party's nomination." First of all, why do we need to know that she is from Charleston? Who cares? Why tell me inconsequential information, AP? Why? I know, I know! It's because the media sucks. I get that. But usually it's because they're not putting in enough information, rather than inserting crap that isn't even relevant to the story. Was the author of this piece under some sort of minimum word count requirement or something?

But that's not the most interesting part (it's merely the most annoying). If she was identifying him from a photo lineup, where did the police get his photo? If he was arrested before, that would be a pretty good reason for the cops to already have a photo of him, yes? I would think so. So ,how come I'm not hearing about what else he may have done before his potentially storied career as a US Senator? Oh, right. Back to the media sucks. Never mind.

This is a very strange thing to be accused of. It's an even stranger thing to do. It's unfortunate that no one had ever heard of this guy (before he won the nomination) because if they had, perhaps background checks would have been done and people would have wanted to vote for someone that they had never heard of without a pending felony charge as opposed to who they did vote for, someone that they had never heard of with a pending felony charge. And as weird as it sounds, this guy is pretty weird. He doesn't seem real bright, either. But he's the nominee for the Democratic Party for a Senate seat in South Carolina. U-S-A! U-S-A!!

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One Of The Worst Ideas Ever

Some things are just inexplicable to me. I mean, I can understand how one person can screw something up. That's easy enough. It's only one person. One person might not see right away that something is a horrible idea. But it's when something is an absolutely horrible idea and there is more than one individual involved in the decision making process that it just really confuses me. How is it that more than one person can think that something is a good idea when it so clearly is not?

Here's the scoop: Over at the AP we learn about a practice that went on at the Lower Merion School District in Philadelphia. See, they issued laptops to their students. (There's a high school that issues laptops to students? That alone was news to me. Don't get me wrong. I think it's a fine idea. I was just a little surprised by it is all.) But in the past couple of years, about 80 of the laptops had gone missing. It's unclear exactly how many laptops were issued to begin with, but what is clear is that they couldn't find 80 of them and they needed to figure out where they were. But that's OK because the computers all had a tracking program in them that was activated and the webcams in the laptops took over 56,000 pictures. Wait. What now?

Correct. In some desperate attempt to locate these 80 missing laptops, this tracking program was activated. When activated, wherever the laptops were, as long as they were on I'm assuming, they would take a picture once every fifteen minutes. Now, where are the laptops going to be the majority of the time? I'm guessing that they're going to be where the kids spend most of their time. Like in their house. In their rooms. Places where there really shouldn't be secret tracking programs taking pictures of them, I'm guessing!

Seriously, how many people had to have been aware that this was a program and a procedure that were going to be implemented with the intention of being used at some point? Clearly, there had to have been several people involved in this process. In fact, the AP article said that there were TEN people who were authorized to request that the programs be activated. TEN?! How did they all think that this was a good idea? I mean, one person can come up with the idea. I get that. But do you mean to tell me that NO ONE else ever said anything like, "Uh, I don't know if we can even legally do that."? Really?! That would probably be the first thing that I would think. OK, it'd be second. It'd be the second thing right after "Oh, hell no!"

And that's the part I don't get. It's such an unbelievably bad idea. That seems obvious. But yet, somehow, some way, it got done. Who are these people? Who thought that this was going to be OK? All at least of them? The school district is claiming that none of the photos taken were inappropriate, meaning that no one was fully undressed in any of the photos. But if you're asking me, just taking the photos at all is inappropriate, so it's really hard to define that to mean something that is really pretty much after the fact. We're just surrounded by stupidity, that's all there is to it. But it still scares the hell out of me.

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