Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Quick Links for Feb. 18th

God damn I hate being busy. And this is a busy ass week. Hopefully this week goes by fast, but I kind of doubt it. In short, moving is awesome. Quick Links time.

Just in case you needed a reminder, the City Council in the early 00's was incredibly shitty.

Did we do anything legally to redevelop downtown? We used questionable legal practices to prevent the building of new movie theaters, we overspent to get shit finished without proper approval, and now we didn't even go about obtaining the property for the part of the ballpark legally. And this is all before we get into the whole trying to find the common sense in putting all our eggs in the downtown basket. These buildings used to be an example of our impending/eternal prosperity. While doing research for this I found an LA Times article from 2006 calling us a cutting edge city largely because of our efforts to revitalize downtown (you'll never guess who they quoted in that article. Ok, you're right, it was Fitzy). What a difference a couple of years makes.

In that LA Times article they cheer the Podesto City Council as being able to cut through all the political bullshit and get shit done. They actually cast Mark Lewis in a positive light! Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and now we know that Podesto pushed all this shit through using questionable practices and we're still wading through their downtown shitstorm. That same council that was lauded by the Times was absolutely destroyed in the press by the current council. And those Thunder games that were sellouts in 2006? Yeah, notsomuch now.

We don't mean to pile on. The ironic juxtaposition was just too good to pass up. (Plus those Fitzy quotes are fucking golden now.) We just want to point out the obvious that while cutting through the bullshit is awesome and manly and all, you still actually have to wade through that shit. That's what government jobs are all about. Strapping on your highwater boots and wading through as much bullshit as you can (Note: This is why they're compensated so handsomely Senõr Fitzgerald). When you try and cheat and cut through it, you're really just fucking the future. Don't believe me? Ask these guys...

Oh no! 30 more steps and that degree from Delta will be useless! OK, well, uselesser

Oh hey, a list of what's wrong with Delta. This should be entertaining. Let's see shitty trustees, check. Lack of long-term planning, check. Shitty counseling services, check. Lack of diversity...really? Sure, all of my teachers at Delta have been white dudes with a few white women sneaking in there. But I never thought that was too big a deal. One of my teachers was South African so technically she was an African-American. Plus the students are plenty diverse. Hell, most of my minority friends are people I met at Delta. I'll give the Accrediting Commission their other points, there are plenty of issues that Delta needs to deal with. But diversity is not one of them. SJRTD deciding to bottleneck Yokuts into one lane during Christmas and the beginning of the semester is a way more pressing issue. (Seriously, what's the deal with that? They pick the time that area's the busiest to build a bus transfer station?)

With support like this, there's no wondering how she won

From the "How did we just find out about this now?" files: Ann Johnston's Mayoral Campaign MySpace! There's honestly not much to it and it was apparently ditched in July. But it is kind of interesting to see that local politicians are slowly realizing the potential of social networking in relation to campaigning. Of course an idiot could have realized how helpful places like MySpace could be after seeing how Barack Obama's net savvy campaign.

Ok, and we posted this because Ann Johnston only having 3 friends, one of which being auto-friend Tom, is hilarious. I now officially feel like less of a loser.

So Ann Johnston is an introvert then?

And when politicians have figured out social networking, that can only mean one thing. It's a trend! And no trend is complete without it's very own trend piece. Granted, social networking was a trend like 3 years ago, but this is The Record. We're pretty sure their sports staff thinks MMA is fixed like the WWE (you got a better reason as to why they don't cover it? Let us know.), so figuring out social networking is big for them.

Since Fitzy's on vacation or something, Alex Breitler and his bright red Mr. Roger's sweater are tackling this one. And I gotta say, it's a pretty decent read. Nothing particularly interesting, just a column about how social networking can help introverts stay in touch with people they otherwise wouldn't. But something seems to be missing in Breitler's column. Like an entire paragraph. The offending passage from Page 2:

"The study may well be true, seen in 15 years popped up out of the blue and announced he'd named his son after me, at least in part."

Doesn't make much sense does it? How is it supposed to read?

"The study may well be true, but it doesn't have to be. An introvert can find social satisfaction, minus the angst, on social networking Web sites.

Consider my adventures over the past two months:

A high school chum I hadn't seen in 15 years popped up out of the blue and announced he'd named his son after me, at least in part."


A chunk fairly important to sentence continuity is missing. Where did it go? It's actually still there, kinda. Journalism lesson time!

Really, it all has to do with layout (Note: Layout programs can be different, we're just going off of our personal experiences). I'm not going to get into the boring specifics of column inches but, needless to say, each story has a certain amount of space they need to fill. If for whatever reason it doesn't fill that space, you fill it with ads or pictures or pretty much whatever fits that doesn't look totally awkward. In this case the picture on the right-hand side filled some space as well as Briefcase Breitler's byline/picture. The byline is where the editor got in trouble.

Breitler's head is just barely below the headline, so one would presume that when it was placed there, it displaced the headline and had to be moved down a tad. When it did so, it cut off the missing sentences. That can be easier to miss because they're not the only part in a large font. It's easier to see misplaced or missing words when they're in a 20-point font. When a picture covers just a couple of sentences in a sea of words, it's harder to catch. So the words are still there, they're just covered by Breitler's Mr. Roger's sweater.

Either that or they accidently got deleted. Either way, the real pressing issue is who brings a totebag instead of a backpack to school? He's lucky they just called it a briefcase instead of a purse. A briefcase makes you seem smart and organized. A purse makes you a chick or queer. Which one would you rather be? Hey, at least it wasn't a fanny pack.

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