Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Back in the Inwood I knew best, circa 1970s, if anyone was running you had to make a quick decision - shoot, run, or get out of the way. I suspect that's the era when the park's defenses were designed.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Translation: I saw naked ladies in Times Square!

So I’ve been in Manchester a bit lately. Advertises as a gateway to Boston. Logan is a bit much. Do people use Manchester to get into the city?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Not much, but folks who live north of the city and people coming in to see businesses in areas north of the city use it. South of the city there is Providence airport, and west of the city Bedford (much smaller) and Worcester airports.

Warren
 

No link.

Look up her crowds and poll #s on your own.

Who else ran like this and surprised everybody?

I’m usually wrong on this stuff. But maybe not this time?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Bret Stephens is a piece of work.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Definitely not insect-like, though.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

What a horrible thing to say about him. The worst thing that's ever been said on the internet.

Vice: The New Grey Lady?
 

So I see a new Chappelle special on my Netflix, and of course, behind Succession and the Righteous Gemstones (very funny, despite McBride basically rehashing Kenny Powers as a preacher), I set it as my next Must Watch.

Like much of humanity, if it's Chappelle, it's required viewing.

Anyway, viewing this must've triggered the algorithm in my news feed to offer me this article from Vice: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5...cks-and-stones

So I scan it and it's got a few links in it, and at the bottom, where it ostensibly makes a point, there's this paragraph:

Chappelle has always been a daredevil comedian willing to take a controversial stance or downplay a serious controversy for laughs, including his early-2000s skits about R. Kelly's court trials on Chappelle's Show. But now he chooses to blatantly ignore the historic criticism against his style of comedy and new loud-and-clear criticism from the trans community. His approach comes off like a defiant rejection of change at any cost. As he keeps going down this path, drawing attention to the worst aspects of his important career, the biggest cost will be tarnishing his own legacy.

I asked myself, "What's this 'historic criticism' of Chappelle?" It turns out, it's Vice criticizing Chappelle back in 2017.

Vice has cited itself as the source of historical criticism Chappelle has ignored. At first, I wondered if this was possible, if this wasn't a violation of some cardinal rule of responsible journalism. Then I considered, this is Vice. I understand this company is in poor financial condition, and they pump out articles at a rate of ten an hour, but can they really not afford to have found a source other than themselves?

The Times can do this sort of thing. So can the Journal, or Boston Globe, or LA Times. But Vice? This is kind of like one of us citing an old post taking another of us to task in the past. So what?

I've read that newspaper subscriptions have increased in response to Trump's criticism of the media. In this battle where reputable sources fight for credibility, it'd be nice to see a bright line drawn between the real and the McJournalism of Vice. I like clickbait as much as the next guy, but when it starts referring to itself as a reputable source of record, we're testing Rock Bottom.

Re: Vice: The New Grey Lady?
 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/t...-broadway.html

The NYT mentions the past contro, but not with a cite. The special does go way the hell out a few times. I think part of his armor is he already walked away- "what, you're going to run me out of show biz? Fuck that. People don't want me, I'll go again."

Re: Vice: The New Grey Lady?
 

If the Times' piece predates Vice's, all is well in the universe, as it's a case of Vice stealing/glomming on/plagiarizing (and creepily crediting itself rather than citing the Times). If Vice piece predates the Times, we're potentially left to wonder if maybe the Times is following "new media's" lead. The latter is a really depressing possibility.

But there is precedent for it. I can't stand the Times' graphics. They're trying to imitate the graphics of exclusively online sources. And it's so fucking irritating. I was trying to delve into some of the 1619 stuff and the initial link is all this huge print and photos and after a few minutes of searching, you feel like screaming, channeling an inner Lewis Black, "Just give me the fucking text! Just the fucking text! You're a fucking newspaper, goddammit! I want to read motherfucking words!!!!"

Re: Vice: The New Grey Lady?
 

I too am an old person and took a second to figure out to click on the quotes.

But I'm not silly enough to be surprised that a publisher of online content cites itself above and before citing others.

Re: Vice: The New Grey Lady?
 

Doesn't it seem likely that the Vice writer knows that people have criticized Chappelle in the past and wrote this, and then some editor or intern went back to add a cite and the other Vice thing was the first thing they found? Most journalists don't feel an obligation to include footnotes.

Re: Vice: The New Grey Lady?
 

Good point. But it's incredibly lazy, or totally lacking in self-awareness. Even for an intern. Vice is not a source of record for anything. Even that great piece they did on Charlottesville was more the work of the awesome reporter (can't recall her name) who kept the story on point and factual, rather than Vice's producers, who turn everything into a Geraldo Rivera infotainment piece.

Re: Vice: The New Grey Lady?
 

Perhaps that's the best we can expect from these sources. This is just what happens when media is democratized.

My favorite development is the story about Twitter and Facebook reactions to events or statements by politicians, celebrities, etc.

Headline: "Twitter exploded today when Brad Pitt said he didn't care for hairy armpits on women." Then below, a bunch of links from common everyday shlubs on Twitter and FB.

So let me get this straight... Comments from some school teacher in Ackron regarding what Brad Pitt said are now news? How? Who in the fuck cares what Karen from Ackron thinks about, well, anything. Fuck Karen. And fuck Bob from Tulsa who replied to Karen, and Vincent from Miami who replied to him. Fuck all of these people. Fuck this entire peanut gallery of poorly educated congenital misfits and whatever deluded hubris caused them to think their unlearned opinions have any claim to value in the public sphere.

Mary from Cincinnati works for a dermatologist and thinks women growing out armpit hair will lead to an epidemic of ingrown hairs requiring costly cyst removal? Fucking great. I couldn't have gotten through my day with out that. Thanks, Mary. Now go home and stick your head in the oven.

Goddammit. Can someone put the social media genie back in the fucking bottle? People saying crazy things should only do so anonymously, in places like this, where only other weirdos will read them.

But the real villain here, the unforgivable evil that should be sent to one of Dante's central rings, is Ted Turner.

If we'd never had that fucking idiotic 24/7 news cycle, we'd never have had this insane business model where, rather than allow for some dead air, assholes in media companies everywhere must be pumping out "stories" all day long. And where they've so run out of useful shit to write that now they're writing about and even doing full news bits on cable about the opinions - the moronic, uninformed opinions - of shitheads spewing on Twitter or Facebook.

"Hey, look, Tom in Seattle has a really strong view about international finance. He just tweeted to Christine Lagarde about it! This is news! Maybe if we try real hard - if we perhaps take acid, or hit ourselves over the head with bricks for a bit - we can imagine Christine reading Tom's tweet over a latte in some French cafe." Or, more realistically, we can envision the reality of Tom tweeting his stupid shite between making and serving lattes at the local hipster coffee shop.

Fuck off, Tom. But really, fuck off everyone paying attention to Tom. Which I guess includes me. But I only paid attention out of hatred. So only half fuck me.

Re: Vice: The New Grey Lady?
 

If it isn't already, it will soon be all online sources. No one is going to choose to drive traffic to somebody else if they could instead point back to themselves.

Agree with the general notion of not caring what random people have to say, sorta, but also one thing that social media (really, just the opportunity to interact with and have exposure to commentators) is the realization that those who are paid for their opinion aren't necessarily anything special either.