OK, blog readers, we have to have a little talk, OK?
Now … I KNOW there’s a fairly decent number of you. When the tech folks initially set up this blog, they didn’t put a traffic counter on it (blond moment!), so I can’t say exactly how many readers this blog has (we’ll get a counter going soon, I promise). I do know that a LOT of you, however, are entering tucsonweekly.com proper through this blog, because tucsonweekly.com proper tracks referring Web sites. And by the transitive property, a lot of you must be READING this blog.
This leads to the question: WHERE IN THE HECK ARE THE COMMENTS?
There have been a few of you who have chimed in here and there, and of course, lots of Weekly people have been chiming in; if nothing else, this blog is helping strengthen the bonds between we Weekly writer folks. That’s special.
But we want to hear from YOU, the public, the lovely and talented blog reader. I know you’re out there and reading this, dammit. So COMMENT!
When Karyn asks about fave restaurant dishes, chime in! When Annie asks for articles regarding blogs and music labels, post! When I make some smart-ass comment, rip me a new one, or add your own smart-ass comment.
It’ll be a LOT more fun that way, OK? DON’T MAKE ME TURN THIS BLOG AROUND AND GO HOME!
This article appears in Aug 3-9, 2006.
I’m here. Nice stuff!
You know what I wish, Jimmy? I wish there were a way for a reader to comment, on the blog, regarding some moronic column in the hard-copy edition, like, oh, say, Jonathan Hoffman’s latest. (Or Connie Tuttle’s next.) Letters to the editor are fine, but when you want to reference the actual column, they’re limiting. No one really remembers what you’re referencing, and they’re not about to go sifting through the recycling bin to find out.
I’d love to write a refutation of the mush-minded Hoffman column, not from the left but from the sensible (and ignored) middle. But fitting it lengthwise into the Letters format just doesn’t appeal. And of course I’d like it to be seen.
Well, Steve, you can always pitch a guest commentary yourself. And you’d be amazed how much a good writer can cram into 250 words or so, for Mailbag — one of our most-read sections of the paper. As for online, we don’t have comments on individual stories as of now, but it’s something we can look into.
Jimmy, my man, I’ve written a few of those letters. I even wrote a few back in the day when your paper let the journalists snap back and one ran the risk of becoming target practice (and not being offered the opportunity of a return volley). Now that the j’s aren’t allowed to respond, it feels like target practice on them. Perhaps the blog could find a middle ground, a nice, neighborly free-fire zone. You could call the section, “Dear Dumb-Ass….”
I have a fair idea of what can be crammed into 250 words and what can’t.
As for pitching a guest commentary myself, I’ve never, but here goes. I propose a piece wherein the weak-minded, fairy tale world assumptions of the left, on the subject of gun control, are examined. I would also explore the twisted logic used to manipulate the issue by the right in more detail than it could withstand, with Mr. Hoffman’s misdirection on the subject serving as a template.
Trying to get us to worry about the morality of murder rather than the murder RATE is right wing rationalizing of the highest order. He may profess to care only that a murderer is a murderer, but I suspect that if a gun were pointed at his head (during one of his rare, unarmed moments), that he would probably wish that the murderer-to-be he found himself faced with were armed with something else–perhaps footwear, to use Mr. Hoffman’s favorite example.
And since the four paragraphs above, only half on the subject, came in at 245 words, perhaps I’ve proved your point.
(Finally, can an enterprising commenter use html in expressing their exquisite thoughts?)
Scott: Thanks for the kind words. Good luck with your efforts to stay in your home.
Steve: Go ahead and write up that commentary, and send it in. You have a whopping 740 (or so) words for those, including a cute little bio at the end. And I think you can use html in these here comments; you just have to do it manually.
Okay, here’s a comment… I’m dying to know which “veteran” restaurant gave you such poor service that you wouldn’t even mention them by name in your recent Chow column. While I certainly enjoy reading the praise, I’d also like to know which restaurants to avoid.
Thanks in advance.
Don: Good point. I probably should not have even put that in, except that it was interesting, and that’s what led me to Asian Sandwich Deli. As you know from reading our food reviews, we are NOT afraid to criticize places; in this case, I decided not to name the place because it was clearly having an off-the-charts bad night. If you’re still dying to know, e-mail me at the Weekly, and perhaps you can talk me in to letting you know.
The bit about commenting on stories was ill informed.
When the afternoon paper did it it was a novelty and an enhancement.
But now that the Star has adopted it, we realize that everything gets flushed after a week, and the forums that preceded it that stayed up essentially forever are now getting “access unauthorised” when you try to visit them.
No one wants the problem “myspace” has now. Where hundreds or thousands of ordinary people are read by respectful others. It wouldn’t surprise me if a promissing business could be had of bribing people into running ads so that they lose there friends list- with the ‘networkingg’ site provide the bribes behnid the scenes.
Or do you think MTV won’t result in GOOGLE being censored? We need a tucson local area network. The cost of providing such a ‘city’ web is very slight. connecting to the WWW SHOULD BE A TOTALLY SEPERATE ISSUE.
Notably WIFI _P_R_E_V_E_N_T_S just such from occuring by selling to corporations such access. At some point the ability to even broadcast within ones home might be lost or taxed or monitored- that is the orwellian microphone realized.
(I am careful about what page i visit pages from!)
Steve SHOULD write a guest commentary! If’n y’all don’t already know, Steve Barancik is a co-producer of Monolog Cabin.
This is the first post in Weekly blog history that has double-digit comments! Wow, I need to have snits more often.