CSotD: Tuesday Short-Takes
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News update: Friend-of-the-Blog Brian Fies has lost his home in the California wildfires, as did Jeannie Schulz, though the Peanuts museum is reportedly okay. Everyone is safe, but a lot of memories lost. Pearls Before Swine cartoonist Stephan Pastis reported last night that he does not know the fate of his home in Santa Rosa, and the only comforting notion I can offer is that wildfires sometimes jump around.
But let's let Pastis lead off:
Juxtaposition of the Day
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(I'm puzzled by the view of jury duty as something best avoided. I'm even willing to grant that a lot of people aren't into "civic duty," though it depresses me to know that.
I had a couple of jury duty false-starts — once getting summoned within a week of moving out of the county, and then one where I had a genuine conflict involving non-refundable airline tickets — before I finally scored a summons that stuck.
We sat in a courtroom while the clerk briefly described each of four upcoming trials, then pulled about two dozen numbers. If your number came up and you had a conflict, you went down and spoke with the judge more privately than in Pros and Cons — off-mike, though the attorneys could hear you and weigh in.
One young woman had her number called all four times, expressed a conflict and was dismissed each time. Presumably if she were married to the DA or something similar, she wouldn't have had to explain it at length four separate times. Yet she walked and I suspect it was probably just as well for all involved.
I was called twice, and, in one case, went down and explained to the judge and attorneys that I had family working for the defendant in a malpractice suit. Nonetheless, I was not excused, which I thought was strange, though I might have been knocked out in the voir dire. However, the case was settled before the trial date, so it didn't matter.
The other case involved a bar fight and, in the voir dire, I was one of two jurors who admitted to having been in such a fight. The other guy was out on a premptory challenge by the prosecution, I was not, and I have no idea why. But the case was fascinating and I wouldn't mind being called again sometime.
BTW, Stephan Pastis is an attorney, or "was," until drawing Pearls gave him an escape.
Which makes me think Rat may be speaking for him this time around.
Sniffing out a story
Tank McNamara comments on the college basketball scandal, and on the oft-cozy relationship between sportswriters and their heroes sources.
Granted, sometimes you know what's going on but don't have enough proof to write the story yet. However, there's also a reason sports is known in some newsrooms as "the toy department" and the writers there dismissed as stenographers.
I wrote a piece for the Denver Post editorial page several decades ago about college recruiting, in the course of which the athletic director for the University of Colorado made such ridiculous assertions that my editor granted me permission to use the term "bullshitting."
I found out shortly thereafter that his program was under NCAA investigation, which I guess made him touchy, but not so touchy that he didn't host a press conference that spring, starring a high school recruit signing his letter of intent to go there.
I called the sportswriter who had done the piece and pointed out that it's an NCAA violation for a college to host such events.
Whereupon I heard, indirectly, that I'd been barred from the campus. Since I didn't normally cover sports, I didn't care, but I was surprised that the reporter had clearly ratted me out to the AD, a practice called "burning a source."
He was apparently what the players disparage as "a jock sniffer" — a guy whose reporting is skewed by his desire to be able to say he has friends on the team.
Reporters should not expect to have friends. Not on the sports beat, not on any beat.
Or, at least, they should know that their real friends are the ones who call them on the sly to tell them things reporters aren't supposed to know, not the ones who slap them on the back, buy them a beer and fill their heads with self-serving nonsense.
And that those real friends who call you on the sly to tell you things reporters aren't supposed to know are mostly conning you to advance some agenda of their own, and that there's an excellent chance they're feeding you bullshit.
As the old newsroom saying goes, "If your mother says she loves you, check it out."
New Tech then
Today's Vintage Radio Patrol is from Sept. 1, 1947, and we're preparing for some undercover work, with this geek explaining his invention, a small two-way radio that can be hidden on the body.
It's like a mashup of Q and Dick Tracy, and ran about three months prior to the unveiling of the transistor at Bell Labs.
Interesting, no?
New Tech Now
Sheldon on a problem I've also had with Alexa.
It's not her fault that the Rolling Stones didn't break up and form a new band when Brian Jones left.
That's on Jagger and Richards.
After all, if I say "Alexa, play songs by Jefferson Airplane," I'll get a little burned-out Crown of Creation stuff, but she won't hit me with any Starship crapola.
But she does needs some filtering, at least enough to specify a date range.
I'm willing to do a little homework and be specific on the time filters I want.
She could even help.
"Alexa, when did Gordon Lightfoot record 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald'," or
"Alexa, when did Billy Joel start dating Christie Brinkley?"
Share the earworm!
Thanks, Dan Piraro. Now I'll be carrying this silly thing around the rest of the day.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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