The annual fuel economy report of Gerard Manley Hopkins.
>Do you usually report the 268th worst anything? (Lost Remote)
Point taken, but most of the stories I read, like the NYT’s, had plenty of context. And, anyway, I only bring this up because I want to share this page from Dow Jones, where you can query daily Dow Jones Industrial Average closings dating back to May 26, 1896. This is my idea of fun.
>Editor regrets ‘Hate’ column (San Francisco Chronicle)
(Via Romenesko)
I’m still waiting for the news that Kenneth Eng is a put-on, a character created to deliver crazed polemics as a sort of social commentary designed to force us to confront our own attitudes about race. Sadly, it still looks like he’s just a moron.
>Fowler weighs up Major League Soccer move (The Guardian)
>Fowler not US bound (The Telegraph)
Robbie Fowler almost certainly is not making the move from Liverpool to the New England Revolution, but isn’t it brilliant that these stories of still-quality players in Europe’s top league considering the MLS are treated semi-seriously? Hopefully, we’ll soon begin to see actual spillover from this guy’s big American adventure. And in other soccer news …
>Brown to press Fifa to host World Cup (The Independent)
>Blatter raises doubts over England’s 2018 World Cup bid (The Guardian)
North America iz in ur Fifa executive committeez, stealin’ ur World Cupz.
>Skunk Ape (WFLX-Fox 29)
My local Fox affiliate marches bravely into the Everglades in search of the obviously mythical Skunk Ape and, in a tragic turn, loses every shred of its dignity while making its way back through the unforgiving sawgrass. Sadly, the station has no video of the story. Not on their web site, anyway. And, let’s be honest, a TV site with no video is about as useless as … well, this blog, I suppose.
>Asian paper’s ‘I Hate Blacks’ column assailed (San Francisco Chronicle)
(Via AAJA)
Kenneth Eng is so batshit crazy I have a hard time believing he’s not a created character. In addition to black people, the 22-year-old “Asian Supremacist” hates religion, logic and, apparently, brevity. He also hates that white people hate Asians, but, lest they get off easy, it turns out he hates Asians, too.
(Take special note of Eng’s questionable command of standardized writing test structure in that last column: “The first thing I hate about Asians … The second thing I hate about Asians … The third thing I hate about Asians.” His focus, support and conventions are adequate, but his poor organization has “below grade level” written all over it. I give it a 2 out of 6.)
Sadly, given the flap over his latest column, I fear I’ll never learn his informed views on half-Asians like me. I get the feeling we might not get along, as I’m totally acting white right now. I’ve been affecting an English accent and sporting a monocle all morning, in fact.
As for what he thinks of himself, I suspect his frequent use of “God” as a title is a telling clue. And as for whether you should consider reading his book Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate, currently the 1,096,415th best-seller on Amazon, consider this excerpt from the description before you reach the obvious conclusion that, hell yes, you should read it:
“Under the auspices of the hominids, dragon king Drekkenoth has attempted to use knowledge to corrupt the minds of all the dragons in his kingdom but is stymied by the existence of a single source of uncorrupt knowledge: a tome of omniscience known as the Lexicon. Dennagon, a lowly dragon sentry, takes it upon himself to discover this lexicon, an act that leads to his expulsion from the mainstream world of worms and humans and the creation of a band of dissident dragons who wage war on the corruption of Drekkenoth and his human masters. During his seemingly endless quest to find the Lexicon, battles with cyborg technodragons and bewildering encounters with the enigmatic forces of time provide Dennagon with insight into the ephemerality of omniscience and the instability of the temporal as he discovers that there is more to life than the lore he has so desperately been searching for.”
Clearly, nothing says must-read like a “seemingly endless quest.” What sold me, however, were the cyborg technodragons.
(See also: AsianWeek takes the racist cake)
>In an attempt to revitalize the industry, newspaper companies have been giving away promotional items (SOMC)
Who says print is dead? Free kitten with every new subscription = goodbye circulation woes. We’ll catch feral cats off the street to keep it going, so there’s your public service angle.
The people leaving comments on that post are, as usual, creepy as hell. That said, the available evidence strongly suggests that the line separating me from those folks is not quite as wide as I’d like.
Am I crazy, or did the tease for next week’s episode of 24 show Jack breaking into the Russian consulate? Haven’t we seen this bit somewhere before? Coming next season: More shit you’ve already seen.
>Tribune may seek self-help (LA Times)
>Tribune Considering Late Offer From Real Estate Magnate (NYT)
The Tribune Company’s future is a choice between something they’re actually calling a “self-help plan” and a guy whose exploits in real estate have earned him the nickname “Grave Dancer?” Obviously, not a confidence-inspiring situation. (Seriously, “Grave Dancer?”)
I don’t remember mod_rewrite being covered in JOU 3101 back in 1998, but after switching the site to a different server platform this weekend I sure as hell wish it had been.
When I describe the process as being a complete pain in the ass, please bear in mind that, until a few years ago, my sole job was to write stuff that was transferred to metal plates, slathered in ink and applied to dead trees. Which leads me to my Official Advice to Aspiring Journalists: Study computer science. Immediately. Do it in addition to your journalism classes. Or instead of. Whatever. Just do it. Then get in touch with me, because I have SO many things I want you to do for me.
(See also: J-schools, computer science and the bigger picture)
