1578 Scrap Paper

Newspaper Kills Self; Police Seek I.D., Hunt For Suspects

Name of Victim withheld pending actual death and notification of next of kin.

1578 Scrap Paper

NEWROSES PA (Wessays™) -- While former readers and advertisers are killing print publications nationwide, the local newspaper here has found a way to stave off the slow death.  It’s killing itself, speeding the process and sparing residents and businesses the messy job and the guilt and remorse murderers often later feel.

Just how it’s suiciding is complicated.  It’s using a variation of the Secret Weapon of the Southern Belle: death by sugar coating.

It has become a festival of feel good stories while the rest of the world is collapsing around it.

Terrorism?  Forget it. “We’re not going to print that negative stuff, says editor Robert M. “Bobby” Tall, “not when all those firefighters are rescuing cats stranded in trees, our oldest resident is observing his 118th birthday and elementary school children are collecting funds for victims of botched transgender surgery in Sudan.”

Subscribers are running out the clock on their subscriptions.  Web readers have begun to realize that the internet paywall has been taken down -- temporarily, perhaps -- in a desperate attempt to retain both readers.

Things began to change months ago when the paper still reported crimes, usually with accompanying stories about how NewRoses has one of the lowest crime rates in the northeast.

Soon after, the front office -- which actually is in front of the building with a spiffy view of a parking lot and a rarely used rail track --  issued a policy prohibiting follow up stories.

Someone robs a bank? Two lines on page 16 (that’s as many as they print these days.)  A year later, no one’s been caught.  No follow up.

An auto accident kills a driver?  No names, please, until next of kin are notified.  They rarely get around to it.  This must be because the dead person has no next of kin.  Or the cops forgot to fax a press release. Or the fax machine ran out of paper last month and no one noticed.

It’s not just the readers who have left the building.  It’s the advertisers.  Even with feel good stories about how “we” have the only remaining DeSoto and Oldsmobile dealers left in the entire world. Even with stories about how this or that new sandwich shop is planning to open and sometimes does… although the does part sometimes doesn’t get mentioned.  That would be a follow up. Can’t have that.

There is no limit to the number of stories about blood drives, charity dance marathons, the joys of living here and what wonderful amazing people work for the town’s largest employer, a Very Important College Football Team attached to a school which occasionally holds classes in complex subjects like remedial reading, feminist literature of the 1850s and weather forecasting.

Here’s a sampling of recent front page headlines. Please note, these are real:

-> “County Residents Prep Toys for Tots Donations.”

-> “All Aboard for … Library’s Polar Express.”

-> “...Teachers Honored.”

-> “Community Celebrates Winter…”

-> “(NewRoses) 10 Year Old Competes in “Punt, Pass, Kick.”

To be fair, there is actually one sort of serious headline:

-> “Police Determine Suspicious Package Not A Threat.”

As of this writing, that package story is observing its 14th day on the website.

Well, you say, maybe there’s just nothing bad happening.  We don’t know. We have no way to know.

The last big national scandal here has offered little new in a year or so.  The latest election has come and gone and the biggest loser hasn’t threatened to sue or been arrested.  Yet.

If either happens, the Important People at the paper will have to consult with the publisher on whether to run it.  But that job is vacant.  And it was vacant even when the previous two people with the title actually came in and sat down now and then.

Some people want to start a competing paper, something worth more than the daily non- stop flight from front porch to recycle bin.  A short trip… but long enough to learn about the latest ham pot pie dinner fund raiser for the war hero returning from his deployment in New Jersey to the delight of his wife, infant daughter and her six siblings.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2015

1577 Unsuitable

1577 Unsuitable

Let’s get this one out of the way first:  today’s business suits look like you just put on a lot of weight.  They’re short, they’re tight. They look stupid.  And they make you look stupid when you wear one.

But in their own overstuffed way, they are a great equalizer.

How?  Well, there are two kinds of suit wearers: the ones who look like they were born wearing one and seem as comfortable in it as they are in a nice warm bath.

The other kind looks like it’s the last thing it ever occurred to them to wear and are about as comfortable as the squirmy kid about to pick up his date to the junior prom.

The new styles make everyone look like they belong in a Clearasil commercial.

A business suit as an authority costume?  Not so much anymore.

Oh, you can still get traditional stuff.  And if you shop in the right “vintage” clothing stores you can find some of the outrageous “styles” some of us wore in the 1970s.

You can pay in the high four figures for a suit that makes you look like you were caught out in the rain in something from Robert Hall, Crawford’s, Howard or Alexander’s.

Uncle Sol sold for Crawford.  He liked what he called the “cloudy suit.” It faded in the sun and shrank in the rain so you’d best wear it only on cloudy days.

If it shrank, it was on you, not on some high paid designer with a family tree he can trace back to the Marquis de Sade without spending a nickel on Ancestry.com.

Brooks Brothers gets it right.  They designed their sack suits to be out of style right from day one, which was more than 100 years ago. And they remain little changed today.

They look awful.  You look awful in them.  But wearing one you are making an un-fashion statement.  You can get a bargain at certain times of the year.  But don’t shop their outlet stores and expect to get the same quality.

There, when you buy, you don’t get the Madison Avenue sales professional, he (or she) is more like the fast food counter worker.  Don’t be surprised if the kid who helps you asks “you want ties with that?”

Shrapnel:

--Saudi women voting and running for and winning office? Next thing you know, they’ll want to drive. When that happens, auto insurance rates will skyrocket and the sheiks will have to sell half their Rolls Royces and Bentleys to pay the increase.

--Only one more GOP presidential debate this year, and it’s tomorrow. How will we survive the rest of 2016 without the electrifying presence of such heartthrobs as Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Jeb Bush?  More to the point, how will they survive?

--Three cheers for the Vatican now that it’s freed the Jews.  We are no longer considered “perfidious” and the Church of Rome has decided to consider converting Jews a lost cause… and maybe an insult. Anyone else out there want to join this party?

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2015

1576 Live Long and Cranky

1576 Live Long and Cranky

A new study puts you cheerful optimistic yea-sayers in their place.   It says you have no advantage over us curmudgeons who start life with colic and as toddlers are already on the verge of making a motto of “get your dog off my lawn.”

Crankiness is not, it says, life shortening or damaging to your health.  The study was limited to about 70- thousand women in Britain.  But its results can be extended to cover anyone.  You included.

This information has been a long time in coming.  But the stirrings have been there for a long time.

Let’s differentiate between people who ARE cranks and those you just think are cranks.  And for that distinction, we owe thanks to writer Jessica Bennett who may or may not have coined the term “RBF.”

That stands for Resting B*tch face, people whose facial features fall naturally into what others interpret as a scowl or anger or sadness.  Bennett restricted her writing to women.  But many guys have it, too.

So people far and wide assume the person behind the face is in a foul mood.  It’s a reasonable assumption, but not necessarily a correct one.

But those are not the people we’re talking about here. It’s the real cranks who should take comfort from the Oxford professors who conducted the multi- year study.

Are we more likely to have cancer?  Or walk in front of a fast- moving train?  No.  Do our hearts give out earlier or faster than those of people who never blow a gasket?  No.

And ask yourself this:  Whom do you trust more, the smiley faced used car salesman or the RBF- affected grumpy old man who ladders up a tree to rescue your stranded cat without your having to ask?

How about the teacher who demands excellence from you when she knows you have it in you compare (and contrast to keep up the academic image) who flunks you with a smile because you’re “such a good person?”

Doom and gloom has its place.

And these days, there’s more reason than ever to feel that way.

Read what’s left of your morning newspaper  or watch CNN for an hour and then honestly tell yourself “it’ll all work out.” No it won’t.

You have to come by this either naturally or allow it to evolve naturally over time.  So if you’re one of those annoying chirpy people, don’t go for the sudden change.

As for the rest of us, realists, perhaps, carry on.

“Put a smile on your face for the whole human race.” What are you smoking?

Or are you Just Plain Nuts?

Shrapnel:

--Hillary Clinton says “Bill might be useful in the White House” conducting tours, helping design vegetarian menus and maybe sharing some thinking on Putin or the economy. Just suppose she had been president for eight years and he were running for office now. Is that the kind of marginalizing we would expect from a president’s spouse?

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2015

1575 Tell it to Sweeney

1575 Tell it to Sweeney

Do you remember your last weeks on a job when you knew the company was folding?  Or when you knew you were going to be canned through a “downsizing” or “rightsizing” or some other short word that meant the bean counters won?

Do you remember the relief you felt even if you expected your finances to be a mess for awhile?

Sure you do.

And what did you do during those last weeks?  There were only three ways to go:

1. Just do your job until there was no job.
2. Sit around and bemoan your fate.
3. Dance like no one was watching.

It looks like the New York Daily News picked Door Three.

Not that they’ve announced a closing.  They haven’t. But the once powerful voice of the New York working man and woman, now diminished to “oh, is that still around?” is showing what may be that delicious moment when they know their diagnosis is fatal, they’ve made peace with it and say what they think and if you don’t like it, stick it.

You can bowl in the News’ newsroom.  And the vacant desks belonged to some of the best, grittiest and most talented people in business of telling you what’s going on in the world.

As the headcount shrinks, the remaining heads are growing bigger and bolder by the day.  

Bill Bramhall/NY Daily News 12/9/15

Need further evidence? Go to the “images” part of your web browser and search for “New York Daily News.”  There’s life in the old dog yet.

When founder Joseph Medill Patterson started the paper in 1919, he brought with him what we in the news business call a “style book.”

Most of these go on forever.  They deal with every detail of coverage and format and writing style.  Do we write “down size” or “down-size” or “downsize?” Look it up.  Do we use the title “Dr.” for someone who is a PhD, but not an MD, DO, dentist or veterinarian? Look it up.  Do we use well known initials for organizations like the FBI or NATO or NRA or IBM or spell out “Federal Bureau of Investigation?” Look it up.

Patterson’s stylebook for the Daily News contained only four words: “Tell it to Sweeney.”  What was unstated but understood was “write so the working guy without a lot of education can understand it.”

That’s what they did. That’s what they still do. Or maybe more accurately are doing again.

In the dark days of printed news, the Daily News has come out of the closet and tells is like it is.  But with a limp.

Shrapnel:

--The outcry over Trump’s proposed Muslim immigration ban has taken on tornadic volume and force with Republicans and Democrats alike condemning it as unconstitutional and un-American.  And everyone who’s anyone -- everyone -- says he’s finally gone too far and his poll numbers will crash, but they won’t.  If anything they’ll rise as he mouths what many Americans are thinking.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichardsgmail.com

© WJR 2015

1574 Feel Better Now?

1574 Feel Better Now?

Of course you do.  You separated yourself from the NFL and the NRA and all the other Ns you follow long enough to watch President Obama’s speechlette on ISIS from the Oval Office.

Miss Grundy corrects and grades the speech: C+ (see end note.)

--Don’t worry folks, we’ve got a great strategy to get rid of these death dealers and it’s working. (Wrong and wrong.)

--No boots on the ground. (Improbable)

--ISIS is a cult of death and doesn’t represent the majority of Muslims in this country and worldwide. (Right and we hope so.)

--But Muslims better start helping the rest of us in getting rid of the few bad apples. (Correct. All your own work?)

--The San Bernardino shootings were a terrorist act. (Correct.)

Your work is improving, Barry. But you have to get your head out of the clouds and try a more realistic approach to both the problem and to your followers.  That’s a Gentleman’s C+.  I expect better next time.  

  Sincerely,

Miss Grundy

Most pundits to whose babblings we had access immediately after the talk called the president’s speech “passionate.”  If that’s an example of his passion, Michelle probably is profoundly frustrated when they turn the lights out.

As are many of the rest of us.

The talk, in prime time on a Sunday night, was meant to rally us to do our best and come together and all that good stuff.  It wasn’t passionate.  But it was sincere.  Or at least it sounded sincere.  If you suspended disbelief, it was a nice summary of what’s failed so far.

The Republicans who control congress have pledged in plain English to thwart everything Obama proposes.  So far, they’ve done a pretty good job of it. If a white Democrat is elected in 2016, they’ll probably ease up a bit.  But not as much as any reasonable person would hope.

Republicans in the House and Senate continue to oppose a law to bar people on the no fly list from buying guns.  They’re worried someone on the list by mistake will be deprived of his God-given, Constitutionally guaranteed right to own a firearm.

It has never occurred to people that if someone is put on the list in error, the government has a duty and obligation to fix the mistake.

Shrapnel:

--The owner of the apartment where those lovely killers in San Bernardino lived opened the place to news photographers.  Now we know what kind of underwear Bonnie wore and where Clyde kept his ammo.  And you can bet that with all the publicity, the next tenant will pay a much higher rent… including bragging rights.

--The New York Times ran a pro- gun control editorial on its front page, something it hadn’t done since August of 1920.  The 1920 piece opposed Warren Harding’s presidential bid but he won.  So how effective is a front page editorial even in a major newspaper?

--What happens when a bunch of people each known as “the smartest guy in the room” get together in the same room? Do they work as a team?  Or do they compete to prove they’re the smartest of the smartest?

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1573 Disease Control

1573 Disease Control

(Note to hypersensitive types herein mentioned and their clipping services and legal departments: This post is satire.)

It’s a vast conspiracy.  There are people out there… well educated people hiding behind advanced degrees who want to take away your right -- your God given right -- to have cancer. Your constitutional right.

And they are backed by big money.  Look at the organizations that run this battering of your freedom!  The American Cancer Society.  The American Lung Association. The American Diabetes Association.  And it’s not just the organized America haters who join in. It’s companies like Roche, and Novartis and AstraZeneca.

And hospitals! Hospitals, fer cryin’ out loud.  And car companies and motorcycle helmet makers.  They sneak in all that complicated crap… airbags, seat belts, crumple zones.  It’s a conspiracy.  They want to take away your constitutional right to kill yourself and others in a crash.

If someone wants you dead, cancer is only one tool.  But that’s all it is.  A tool.  Look at the statistics, cancer deaths vs. other causes.  Auto accidents. Heart attacks, falling pianos.  Rocks, fists, potholes.  Cellphones, x-rays, and those spring-from-the-ground utility poles that seem to pop up when you’re drunk and can’t react fast enough to avoid walking into them.

All this to deprive you of your right to have cancer or strokes or even walking in front of a bus.  You’re an American, dammit, and no one has the right to stop you just because a bunch of do gooder drug companies, doctors and politically correct liberal phonies are trying to control your disease.

Of course, you say, the associations and institutions and corporations that would imprison you can’t make laws.

Right.

It takes members of congress to outlaw stuff.  What’s the going rate for a vote?  How much to buy your Senator outright?

Shrapnel:

--Seriously, people, the gun murders have to stop. And the people who say cars kill more people than guns -- statistically correct -- don’t think about how many more would die if we didn’t test and license drivers.

--Hunters are up in arms because they think “we” are trying to take their guns away. Disgusting as the habit is, no one’s trying to do that.  But maybe you don’t need full auto to pick off groundhogs.

Grapeshot:

-It’s cheap and easy to demonize all muslims for the acts of some, but the fact remains that a terrorist without a gun is just another loudmouth in the street.

-It’s equally cheap and easy to demonize our culture of avarice, but we don’t tell others how they should live… at least not on our own shores.

-It’s cheap and easy to lie about how we’re being overrun by terrorists masquerading as refugees, but the vetting takes years and we won’t be risking much by admitting a few thousand.

-No one demands you love your Syrian neighbors, just that you give them the same break you’d hope for if our lives were reversed.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2015

1572 The Algebra Test

1572 The Algebra Test

“When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school it’s a wonder I can think at all.” -- Paul Simon, “Kodachrome” 1973

Okay class -- seniors only -- a show of hands.  How many of you remember sitting in algebra class asking yourself “when am I everrrr going to need this?”

Let’s see.  Looks like everyone has a hand up except Al Einstein there in the window row, and Dusa McDuff right in front of Al.

We all know Einstein. Most don’t know McDuff or have a clue about her work in math, “symplectic topology,” which as best as we earthlings can figure is the study and nature of twisty bands that fold.

We wouldn’t know one if we saw one.  But it’s important.  Well… we’re told it’s important.

The point is chances are you’ve never needed a simple equation in real life.

Now, here come today’s brilliant ed-yu-craters who have toughened New York State’s already ludicrously difficult algebra Regents exam.  Those are final exams at certain points in an academic high school track.

The passing rate is in the low 70 percent of takers, and expected to go lower once the new and harder tests are actually given.

Surely, you remember a problem stated thus:

A train leaves Miami at 10am heading for Atlanta at an average speed of 50 mph, a straight shot of 600 miles. Two hours later, a train leaves Atlanta heading for Miami at an average speed of 70 mph.  At what time will they cross paths?

This is fairly complicated but not difficult if you know the steps.  Of course in the real world no train ever travels at those speeds.  But we’re talking about the algebra regents, here, not real life.

We’re talking about the old exam, the one where three out of ten flunk.  The new exam will ask for a graph of your answer.

Of course, you’ll get it all right.  After all Ms. Pinkly has been giving you drills in this all year.  And you’ll thank her later, because this is precisely what you’ll be doing when you get that starter job in the Best Buy stockroom.  It’ll be even more important to you when you become a partner at your law firm.

Not that it’s a bad idea to learn a little math because it’ll help you think and it’ll teach you that just because you know the names of all the characters on “The Real Housewives of Yankton SD” or assume that a thought that enters your head has to be right just because you thought it, doesn’t make it so.

And separating our opinions from facts is fast becoming a lost art.

Shrapnel:

--Speaking of Albany, Tarnished Silver is convicted and Sen. Skeezos is next in line as the courts clean out the old and corrupt in the legislature. Gotta make way for the up and coming young and corrupt. Nothing ever changes in Albany.

--Yesterday marked the 60th anniversary of Rosa Parks bus ride that changed America.  Parks passed away on October 25, 2005. Her life and death were the subject of the first internet-only Wessay. If interested, you can read it here.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2015