There are a great many reasons that the newspaper industry has been hit by very hard times, most notably because of...well, what we're all doing here right now on the Internet. Though I've always felt that a newspaper on the Internet is still a newspaper, just in a different format to read. Subscriptions plummet, though there is still heaving advertising, though I suspect the rates are much lower. So, hard times. But I note that newspapers are coming up with ways to deal with that, like Web-only articles for subscribers and limited access to articles if you're not a subscriber. But...yes, hard times, and understandably so.The Los Angeles Times, though, might also want to look in the mirror. (And no, I don't meant Times-Mirror.) Not only do they have a convoluted web log-in process that far too often screws up, but far worse was what I ran into today. As I wrote last night, UCLA won the national championship for baseball on Tuesday. After 108 national championships for the school, it was their first-ever for baseball. A few hours after the game, I went on the Times website to read their report. I figured they might even have it as the headline story. Nope, not on the front page. I clicked off, and ended up reading about it elsewhere, on ESPN's website. Just now – and it’s past noon – I went back to the paper online. I browsed through the homepage…but not a single word about the local college, UCLA, winning their first-ever baseball national championship. Oh, well, okay, they didn't see it as a front page story, I'm surprised, but their choice -- so, I went to the sports page. And it wasn’t the headline story there, either. Now, I was really surprised. And I scrolled down the page -- but couldn’t find it at all. I mean nowhere on the L.A. Times sports page that UCLA won the national championship – I was flabbergasted, so I looked yet again. And finally…near the very bottom of the page, in the "Oh, by the way, More" afterthought section – and again, remember, it’s past noon – they had a tiny story about how UCLA is one game away from winning the championship!! They didn't even have that they had won -- the night before! Here’s the screenshot. Even knowing that it’s here, you’ll have to look hard to find it. And it’s 40 hours behind the story!! Yipes. In fairness, there has to be some really odd, totally bizarre, inexplicable glitch here. But still -- so much for "Hot off the presses." UPDATE: Later in the day, I went back and they did have something posted with a "rolling graphic" -- photo story links that scroll by, replaced by another -- and for all I know it was there before, but hidden. But even if so, this isn't something that should be hidden. It should be a banner headline that is splashed across the screen -- and also is at least somewhere on the front page. The local college won the national championship. And to have the story about the game the day before is ridiculous.
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A couple months back, I wrote here about a clever website that A Writers Guild friend, Bill Braunstein, and three of his talented friends came up with, called, “A Few Minutes With…” It's a collection of very short stories about 26-year-old Kyle Benson who, whenever his life screws up too much, some very famous, dead celebrity shows up to offer advice.
In case you've only been following it intermittently, you can catch up on things there, but the "season finale," episode 27, has just been posted. In it, Kyle decides to meet his problem semi-head on, and goes to the library to research schizophrenia, where to his annoyance he's visited by a famous, albeit formerly-living author. Texas State Senator Wendy Davis (D-10) is a remarkable woman. She set out on Wednesday to personally filibuster a proposed state law, SB 5, that would be one of the most restrictive in the nation on abortions -- stopping all abortions after the 20th week and cutting abortion clinics in the state by 80%, just for starters. Okay, so she's going to filibuster, what's the big deal? Well, you see, this is a special session of the Texas Senate. The bill had to pass by midnight, or it would be defeated. Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) could conceivably call another special session, but that's a separate matter. What all this means is that Wendy Davis had to filibuster, by herself, for...13 hours. Okay, that's impressive. Except that until you know what filibustering in Texas entails, you don't begin to have an idea how impressive an undertaking this is. In Texas, to filibuster, among other things: you, of course, have to stay on your feet. But you can't lean on a desk for support. You can even touch a desk. And you can't take a bathroom break. You also can't just read from the phone book or any random publication. Everything you say must be exactly on topic to the subject under consideration. That's just for starters. And so, she started. And talked. And talked and talked and talked and... And here's where it gets confusing, because I can't get precise reports as I type this late Wednesday night. But as far as I can understand, she spoke for almost 11 hours, and with about 90 minutes to go before the midnight deadline, the Republican Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurt presiding was asked to respond to a challenge that Sen. Davis had strayed off topic for the third time. (She was discussing another bill that she claimed was germane to the bill at hand.) As the Lieutenant Governor was attempting to decide how to rule (and everyone in that room had a pretty good idea what they would be...), the galley exploded. Here's video of that (after a 30-second commercial) -- Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Not surprisingly, Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst ruled against Sen. Davis at 10:39 PM.
Here's where it gets even more convoluted. It appears that Democrats began using parliamentary procedures to ask questions and make motions and delay proceedings until the midnight deadline passes. It's now past midnight in Texas as I write this, but I have no clue what happened during that last 80 minutes. I suspect that it will be clear in the morning. But then, this is Texas, so who the heck really knows. In fact, it gets even more convoluted. A vote was apparently begun at 11:45 PM, and Republicans claim it passed by a vote of 17-12 before midnight (this claim later changed to 19-10) -- except that the Texas Legislative Service registered it as passing on "6-26-13," a day too late. However, according to the Austin Statesman, " the listing was changed to reflect passage before midnight." And now (it's just before 2 AM in Texas as I write this -- hey, we tries to get you accurate reporting...), senate Democrats are arguing that the voting didn't get finished until after midnight. If that's the case, the bill didn't pass. Republicans however are saying...well, you get point. But whatever happens, what a remarkable, heroic effort by Sen. Wendy Davis. By the way, this isn't the first time that this noble woman has filibustered at length in Texas. A couple years, she filibustered to save funding for education. And she succeeded. If I had a 10-gallon hat handy, I'd be doffing it big time... Hat's off, indeed. To Wendy Davis. Very deep in the heart of Texas. UPDATE: It's now Wednesday morning. There's now finally a resolution to the tale. At 3:01 AM, the special session still had not yet been officially closed, though it ended at midnight. (You figure that one out.) Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst came back to his podium and announced -- “Regrettably, the constitutional time expired” on the special session" and he said that Senate Bill could not be signed, since the end of the session had passed. So, the bill was defeated. He then gavelled the session closed. And added, "It’s been fun, but, uh, see you soon.” It will not surprise you that the crowd in the galley erupted in cheers. It might surprise you that there was still a crowd in the galley. Mr. Dewhurst told reporters that the bill had passed, but he couldn't hear anything because of the noise. “An unruly mob, using Occupy Wall Street tactics, disrupted the Senate from protecting unborn babies,” he said angrily. It turns out that one woman in the Texas senate had been a whole lot angrier that Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst could ever imagine being. And she decided to stand up for 11 hours and protect born women. I'm a Chicago Cubs fans, and Northwestern University. I'm not really used to championships. It's gotten me to appreciate the sport for what it is, the individual game for what it is, the moment, the players and personality. Oh, sure there were the Michael Jordan Years, and those were great. Remarkable even. But my favorite teams are the Cubs and Northwestern Wildcats. No World Series in 104 years, no Rose Bowl in 63 years -- in fact, Northwestern has never once even qualified to be in the NCAA basketball tournament. So, it's a bit odd to be sitting here tonight, having watched the Chicago Blackhawks win the NHL Stanley Cup last night -- and tonight, just an hour ago, see UCLA (my grad school alma mater) win their first-ever NCAA baseball championship. (The school has won an amazing 108 national championship, but never before one in baseball. Odd.) UCLA had a strange team this year. They were sort of like the old Hitless Wonders, the 1906 Chicago White Sox who had no offense, but great pitching and won the World Series, where they batted a pathetic .198. (It should be noted that the team they beat was, of course, the Cubs.) UCLA had very little offense -- their team leader in home runs only hit five. The whole team only hit 19. By comparison, the player who the Cubs selected first in the baseball draft two weeks ago hit 31 home runs this year, all by himself. Almost double the entire UCLA team.
What they had was good, effective hitting when it matter, great fundamentals -- bunting, fielding, moving runners along -- and great pitching. Two strong starting pitchers and the top reliever in all of college baseball, David Berg, who lead the NCAA with 23 saves, which tied an NCAA record, and an Earned Run Average of a stunningly low 0.87, less than one run a game. When it came to the College World Series, UCLA swept everyone. They had 10 wins and no losses. They didn't get many runs -- or even extra base hits. (Only four extra base hits the entire series!) But they gave up fewer runs, an average of less than one. And that's all you need -- one more run than your opponent. And they saved it all for the last game. Beating Mississippi State 8-0. I wonder what will happen tomorrow. No championship games that I know of. No problem, these two will last. Hopefully, the Cubs and Wildcats were taking notes... This morning, I received an officious looking email. It came from Dun & Bradstreet, a very real company, and had the ominous subject line: "FW: Complaint -- 033322." Well, okay, it would have been ominous if it wasn't so obviously an idiot scam. But still... In fairness, if I was an actual, small business, it might have seemed a bit more ominous, though even then it had far too many red flags. But I'm not an actual, small business, any more than this was from Dun & Bradstreet. I had my virus filters all in place and was fascinated enough to read the letter. It said --
I trimmed a few of the more pompous, legal-sounded parts, but that was the gist. I have to admit, as far as Email Scam Letters go, that was one of the better ones I've received. It was written in actual English with no typos.
Mind you, I knew it was a scam when it arrived, but still I did do what I always do when I receive anything even halfway questionable in email -- and I highly recommend this for everybody -- I did a search for a passage of text from the email, and yes, it came up that it's indeed a scam. (Shocking, I know...) The two biggest early-warning giveaways were that this was a "FW" email, and I couldn't believe for a second that a company as reputable as Dun & Bradstreet would be forwarding me anything. They'd write a letter directly. And second, it had the old bugaboo, an attachment. Of course, the biggest giveaway was the first sentence, so I didn't even get past the opening line without laughing -- that one of my "customers' had a complaint "regarding their dealings" with me. My customers. As close as I could figure, that would be...well, you reading this. As a freelance writer, I work with clients. I really don't have all that many, what I even remotely consider, "customers." Mind you, it could have been from a couple of producers I'm dealing with on a film project -- but producers would no sooner refer to themselves as "customers" than Saddam Hussein would consider himself alive. Grand Poobah or Lord and Master would be more likely. But beyond that, I knew it couldn't be from a producer because that would mean they were writing back about something. About anything. Getting a response from producer (including a note, "How as your day?!") without six attempts first is proof of forgery. It also could have been from a reader of my Hufferies on the Huffington Post, though I thought that that was unlikely, since public complaints are posted there openly for all to easily see. From experience, I know that if anyone of my "customers" there has a complaint about what I wrote, they have absolutely no problem expressing it. Indeed, they relish the public platform. So, that leaves the fine readers of these pages. There is a "Comment" button here, too,, but the software doesn't post them directly, and instead leaves them under a separate Comment page that has to be clicked on. (In fact, if there were actual complaints from "customers" here, I'd more figure that it was about that to the software developer...) Now, I do know that there can be complaints from my customers here. Maybe the cheese dip in the refrigerator wasn't their favorite. Maybe I wrote something that struck someone as insane. Maybe they didn't want to hear yet another version of the song, "Hello, Dolly!" But given that I don't consider people coming to the pages of Elisberg Industries as "customers," but rather fine, noble, intelligent, warm-hearted and decent cream of the earth, I just couldn't wrap my mind around the "customer" concept. And also, since everything here is free, I figured, "Hey, if someone actually does have a complaint, screw 'im." (Well, okay, no, I didn't actually think that. What I thought was -- "If someone actually has a complaint, that's why God created the Comment button. And the fine, noble, warm-hearted and smart people here know that.") So, yes, obviously, of course, this email was nothing but a scam. It was clear from the "ding" that new email had arrived. But on the off-chance that any of the "customers" here have a complaint, please hand it to Ms. Gsalava seated at the front desk. And this is the last of our Anna Kendrick videos from our Anna Kendrick Trilogy. In the first of them, I mentioned that one of the reason I liked her is that I found her charming for being, among other things, so self-effacing. This will give you some idea. It's from an appearance on the David Letterman Show, where she's promoting the movie, Pitch Perfect. We hear her refer to her geeky ways, and it becomes clear from Dave's response that this has been a common theme through the interview, describing herself as a geek and dork and such. And then, he asks her to re-create a wonderful, musical moment from the movie. It's a terrific little performance, and clearly prepared. But it's still geeky. And on shows like this, actors like to portray themselves as cool and special and Stars. To do something geeky, that risks failure on live TV -- no matter how good it is (and it's wonderful), that's something most actors don't want to do. (And from experience having worked on many movies, something most attractive actresses don't want to do, wanting to maintain that aura and spot on the pedestal. I'm not saying that pejoratively, just describing a reality, and perhaps even somewhat understandable reality, of movie promotion.) Anna Kendrick has no such qualms. (A word of warning. The video stops for a couple seconds, asking you to "Click here" if you want to see something else. I'm guessing you won't want to -- so just wait a brief moment and it will continue on.) |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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