tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8507136945842934293.post6565902047734891160..comments2023-09-21T06:15:03.099-07:00Comments on Conjugate Visits: I'm Sorry, Mr. President, You Were Saying? (Or, 'How I Learned to Stop Listening to Anything of Substance and Love the Grammar Snobs')June Casagrandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00363096837053080969noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8507136945842934293.post-82278552597780197572009-07-23T09:07:33.017-07:002009-07-23T09:07:33.017-07:00Word.
Phariseeism (?) evokes the same "this ...Word.<br /><br />Phariseeism (?) evokes the same "this cannot stand" response in me. <br /><br />Take heart in the fact that I don't hear that stuff often -- not for a couple years, in fact. <br /><br />But, yeah, at the last paper where I worked, the "shame on you" reader signoff was a running joke among a couple of reporters.<br /><br />Oh, then there was, "How do you sleep at night?" I got that one from a reader who didn't like a headline on my story. He said it was evidence that I was biased and shamelessly spinning my story.<br /><br />I called him (he was a participant in one of the organizations covered so I knew how to reach him). And I not-so-gently explained to him that reporters don't write the headlines. <br /><br />He apologized profusely. It was nice.<br /><br />I wonder if he had any trouble sleeping that night.<br /><br />Seriously, though. This sheds light on something I consider to be a serious problem the country is dealing with. Whenever someone does their work out of the spotlight, any shortcoming is presumed to be calculated, nefarious. Our culture has come to consider cyncism to be a safe place. You can protect yourself from being suckered by simply attributing the worst possible motives to anyone in any kind of power. <br /><br />It's something that's fascinated me for a while. The "Oh, politicians are all corrupt. Reporters are all just trying to sell newspapers or spin lies. Business people are never motivited by anything other than money."<br /><br />I'm late getting out the door this morning, so I may not connect the dots well here, but the result is that people won't believe in something when it's staring them right in the face (they're too savvy to "fall for it") so they just believe everything they want.<br /><br />Okay, that was June logic on too little coffee and too little time. But hopefully some of it made sense. Me go work now ...June Casagrandehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00363096837053080969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8507136945842934293.post-59027775797905970242009-07-23T08:34:25.856-07:002009-07-23T08:34:25.856-07:00In an oxymoronically relevant aside--and speaking ...In an oxymoronically relevant aside--and speaking of politics (and religion and philosophy and most other things)--your comments that involve the hypocritical and self-righteous accusations of grammar snobs always quickly lead me to the same conclusion: pharisees share the same brain and and they make me mad and they must be stopped.<br /><br />I don't think I'm a violent man, but when I hear people say things like "shame on you" and "you owe your readers an apology," I want to hurt them. Badly. Not so they die--that would be too easy; they deserve to suffer.<br /><br />It's little consolation that they quickly show themselves to be idiots who might better tend to their own glaring and ginormous weaknesses than go about loudly pronouncing judgement over the minor foibles of others.<br /><br />Argh. Grr. Damn it all to a fiery hell.<br /><br />And the fact that they get in our heads and never leave only makes it worse.<br /><br />Um, now what was that you were saying?Joelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05550742712966484303noreply@blogger.com