Comments on: Going down swinging.

By: Dorothy

Dorothy — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:26:09 +0000

crazycatlady – moe can certainly speak for herself but I’ll use this opportunity to direct you to her blog. I think Nancy links to it as well, if memory serves correctly.

http://moesmisadventures.blogspot.com/

By: Dexter

Dexter — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:06:24 +0000

Congratulations to Dave Bing, who finally has a full term now to save the city.
http://www.freep.com/article/20091103/NEWS15/91103083/1318/Bing-wins-mayoral-race

By: whitebeard

whitebeard — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:19:42 +0000

Del, the story continued many moons later when I received a call from the local police that said copy editor, then a columnist, was sleeping it off in a jail cell after an altercation in a bar and what did I want to do with him.
I called his wife and explained the situation and asked if she wanted him home sooner than later and her reply was keep him there, which is what I did, also asking if I needed to post bail in the morning. “No, we will just let him go when he wakes up,” the officer said.
Amazing the number of calls I received from the police about reporters, etc. One was about one of the police reporters who had been picked up because he matched the description of a kidnapper and would I confirm his identity, which I did.
Another was about the aforementioned obnoxious reporter in No. 18. He had been picked up in another city on the island of Montreal because the police thought he was a kid (he was quite short) who had stolen one of the newspaper’s press cars. I hemmed and hawed and asked for a better description until he screeched: “Tell them it’s me, tell them to let me go.” I said that I guessed I could not suggest that the “little car thief” be locked up and the cell key thrown away and the police officer laughed. ” Don’t want him back, do you?”
I obviously did not work in a bland, boring newsroom, Jason T., or maybe I made it less boring.

By: crazycatlady

crazycatlady — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:06:53 +0000

Moe- Please update us on how you’re doing…

By: Jason T.

Jason T. — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:48:07 +0000

I would add one thing — the macho bravado that’s celebrated in newsrooms can also make them very hostile, discouraging environments.

Not coincidentally, the last newsroom that I really enjoyed working in was a suburban office, dominated by women and with a female bureau chief. Everyone was competitive and fairly cynical, but there was also cooperation and people helped one another on big stories.

Naturally, the-powers-that-be broke us up. We were having too much fun and showing up the reporters “downtown.”

Most newspapers are run by people who have no management training, and they either stamp out any individuality or let the inmates run the asylum.

There has to be a middle ground between bland, boring newsrooms and “Lord of the Flies.”

By: Jeff (the mild-mannered one)

Jeff (the mild-mannered one) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:31:50 +0000

Why does the world keep challenging my level of commitment to oppose the death penalty? Eh, he’ll get “NG by reason of insanity” and work out his days in a secure facility, unless someone free-weights his sentence a bit shorter as happened to Jeff Dahmer. (This poor deranged fellow has to pass 17 to beat that level of evil lunacy.)

By: brian stouder

brian stouder — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:56:31 +0000

Here’s an example of why I am perfectly happy to pay taxes so that police and others will approach the jobs that I’d find unapproachable; and why I’ll pay a subscription rate so that journalists can try and fathom stories I’d find unfathomable:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33604787/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

CLEVELAND – The number of bodies found in and near a rapist’s home rose to at least 10 on Tuesday when authorities unearthed four corpses from the backyard and found a skull in a bucket in the basement.Cleveland police stopped searching for victims for the night and planned to continue on Wednesday. They have extended their efforts to boarded-up homes in the neighborhood where residents complained for years of a stench that one even said “smelled like a dead body.”
Some in the community want an investigation into why it took so long to trace the grisly source.

Sometimes one wonders just how crazy things really are, just beyond the window pane

By: del

del — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:12:14 +0000

A favorite movie scene of his was when Tommy Lee Jones slams an insolent barkeep’s face into the bar in Lonesome Dove.

By: del

del — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:10:37 +0000

Great story whitebeard. Reminds me of a career prosecutor I know, a gracious and dignified man who would complain bitterly that civility prevented him from acting like that copy editor. When he found himself in such situations he would, under his breath, cite scripture to the end that Justice ought be meted out swiftly, with a sword, or, in his words, a 2×4.

By: Jeff (the mild-mannered one)

Jeff (the mild-mannered one) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:08:38 +0000

Hat tip and dittos to Jason T. re: Mr. Allen.

Back to hitting refresh on the local Board of Elections website — i love not having to sit around the County Admin Bldg for hours in a tie on Tuesday nights.