We call it Vol. 24, No. 36.

You’ll call it the new issue of the Weekly!

Feel free to post your comments-policy-worthy thoughts on the new issue here. Thanks!

This article appears in Oct 25-31, 2007.

45 replies on “Didn’t We Do This Same Thing About a Week Ago?”

  1. I am going to review this week’s issue of the Weekly, or at least as much as I can before my fingers fall off.

    I’ll start with Bob Grimm.

    First he reviews “Saw IV.” I am wondering, of all the movies released in a given week — including a large number of interesting independent films — who made the decision to assign Grimm the task of reviewing a NUMBER FOUR sequel? Everybody knows that “4” movies suck ass. What was the #4 movie in the Star Wars series? Phantom Menace. I rest my case.

    Grimm’s review goes into extreme detail of the plot, telling us all sorts of details about the backstory of “Jigsaw,” whoever the hell that is, but barely telling us anything juicy about the awesome contraptions that gut and eviscerate people. If I am going to read a “Saw” review I want to know exactly how people are sliced up. Remember Joe Bob Briggs? He did drive-in movie reviews, and every review ended with a precise tally of the number of beheadings, debonings, bonings, breasts and fighting styles (“bimbo fu”). Now here’s Grimm reviewing a horror flick and he talks at length about the killer’s feelings. The irony of a guy named Grimm not giving us the gnarly details is too much.

    Grimm then reviews a bunch of DVD releases. I want to know, do the movie companies mail him the full DVDs? I mean, if he is reviewing the Super Awesome Multi-Pack of Kubrick Masterpieces, it’s because Grimm got one for free, right? It might be nice to disclose that. Because let me tell you, if movie companies were mailing me that supreme swag on an ongoing basis, I would totally kiss their ass. I’d be, all, “This is the best Kubrick movie pack since the last one two years ago! Buy them all! Buy the individual movies too! They’re wonderful! You can never see too much Kubrick! He’s the greatest reclusive genius director of incredible masterpieces who ever lived! Even “Eyes Wide Shut” was fantastic! I give it an A minus because Leelee Sobieski was too young to take her top off!”

    Maybe Grimm is buying all this stuff himself. Maybe one day he went out and bought the Super-Paks of Twin Peaks, Kubrick and (What was the other one?) on a lark. Ha ha, just kididng. Come on, Tucson Weekly, require Bob Grimm to disclose that he’s getting plied with awesome freebies. You know, it might be worth a mention. Admittedly, pretty much every publication is guilty of this omission, not just the Tucson Weekly. But I think it would interest readers to know exactly what becomes of all the swag DVD writers get. Do the writers e-Bay that stuff, or take it in to Bookman’s? Are the profits from that tax-free? Ahem…

    Anyway, I kid. I am just jealous of that bastard with all his free plastic discs. But Grimm did make one pretty bad error — he lists the films missing from the Kubrick collection but completely forgets to mention “The Killing” and “Paths of Glory.” “The Killing” was Kubrick’s arrival as an auteur — prior to that he was working on his craft and hadn’t really figured out his personal style. With “The Killing” he went balls-out to make a gutsy, entertaining noir flick that I highly recommend. “Paths of Glory” was also quite good, and was Kubrick’s first foray into anti-war politics. Had he not sharpened his knives with “Paths of Glory” he never could have gone for the jugular so deftly with “Dr. Strangelove.” Finally, “Spartacus” isn’t fully a Kubrick film, since he was yanked off as director midway through.

  2. Now on to Mr. James Digiovanna. That crazy guy!

    This week Digiovanna reviews “King of California.” I have only nits to pick here, but this is a nit any math student would appreciate: First James says the plot picks up in “the final third,” then later James writes that “it took director Cahill three-quarters of the film to realize that he needed a little more story to hang his Oscar-begging on.”

    If I am not mistaken, 3/4 of the film would mean that the final 1/4 was good, not the final 1/3! The difference between 1/3 and 1/4 is 1/12, which in a 90-minute movie translates to 7.5 minutes! That means there is a 7.5-minute stretch of “King of California” in which James Digiovanna can’t make up his fucking mind! What happened to the missing 7.5 minutes, James?

    I also take exception to James Digiovanna’s following metaphor: “It’s too bad that it took director Cahill three-quarters of the film to realize that he needed a little more story to hang his Oscar-begging on. Maybe next time out, he’ll tone down the feeling-fest and mix some actual meat into his schmaltz stew.”

    Doesn’t James realize that the word “schmaltz” is a Yiddish term meaning “chicken fat”? So I take it James wants chicken added to chicken? In a stew? Why not jambalaya? Why does James assume that meat makes a movie better? Why not soy protein? Maybe James should have asked the director to add more soy protein to his water chestnuts stir-fry?

    James also has this metaphor: “…thus proving that wishing on a star sometimes gets you something besides a horrible meteor storm.” Meteor storms are horrible? WTF? How about meat-eor storms in a space-schmaltz stew?

    I think James Digiovanna rules, but he was obviously uninspired by this week’s milquetoast movie. It was neither offensive enough or great enough to fire up his writing. You can tell because at the end of the review he says he kinda liked it, sorta, even though at the beginning he said the movie kinda sucked. So it kinda sucked and was kinda good. Sounds like poorly executed oral sex.

    Next time, have Digiovanna write about “Saw 4” and Grimm write about “King of California.” Unlike Grimm, Digivionna might actually have touched on the political ramifications of entertainment that is fixated on torture.

  3. Now on to John Schuster’s article about the guy getting fired from MIXfm.

    This was a curious article. There is never any indication why Brad Behan might have been fired. Behan seems to have no idea.

    We eventually read that the fireer, Diane Frisch, “had not responded to interview requests as of press deadline.” Would that be, like 1 or 2 days? Why not hold the story and pester a few more people to find out what happened?

    We get no such statement about Bobby Rich, the radio partner. Was he contacted? I’d imagine he’d know something about the reasons behind the firing.

    I’m not sure what the emphasis of this story is: Is it that somebody was fired unfairly? Or is it that the separation agreements are so creepy?

    “They had written out what they wanted me to say on the air,” said Behan. “It would be accurate to say (the agreement) said they wanted me to say I was leaving the show to pursue other interests. That’s just not true.”

    I would have liked to have seen the Weekly article actually quote from the separation agreement, or highlight some egregiously patronizing sections in an image.

    I also found this graph a little vague: “…the ratings were released. Like ratings clockwork, the Bobby and Brad show was right at the top, the signature program on the only station in the Journal cluster that pulls its weight in the ratings.”

    I question the use of passive voice in the first sentence. Who compiles the ratings? I guess I am a stickler for specifics. (By the way, what is “ratings clockwork”?)

    I look forward to a follow-up article, since the most interesting thing here is the mystery of the man’s firing. The other most interesting thing is the “say you resigned” clause of the “severance pay” agreement, and I’d like to read more about the legal precedents for this, because to me, it sounds like extortion. But I’ll bet it happens all the time. U’d also like to know why the “now legally obsolete no-compete contract” is obsolete.

  4. Regarding the offensive Wildcat cartoon article, I thought it was generally well-reported.

    Honestly, though, I think either the reporter or the cartoonist could have done a better job explaining exactly why the hell the No Relation cartoon was supposed to be funny. He mentioned that the cartoon tends to juxtapose unrelated things to absurd effect, but what was unrelated or absurd in a cartoon berating Jewish people for being cheap? Why not press the cartoonist to explain this a little better? I don’t get it. (I haven’t seen the cartoon, so tell me if I missed some nuance.)

    I’m old enough to remember the Erik Andersen “No Exit” cartoons that were consistently funny and satirical, and included running gags mocking UA dean Henry Koffler and campus weirdo Y’Shua Lord of Hosts 666 Israel. They were actually clever, topical, and always offered something clever to go along with the mocking. From the sound of it “No Relation” was pretty un-clever while it was being offensive. If anything, the Wildcat should have fired the guy for not being funny.

    This is scary, though:

    “Lattin and Reitman say they participated in a meeting with Hillel officials and the Wildcat editorial staff to discuss the comic; an apology and training was discussed.”

    One racist cartoon gets past editorial muster (because they erred in the direction of free speech, which in my opinion is ALWAYS the proper direction to err) and the Hillel foundation people want the entire Wildcat staff to go through sensitivity training? The Wildcat already fired the guy. I hope the editor has balls enough to tell the Hillel people to fuck off.

  5. Regarding Dave Devine’s well-written article about the 78-year-old guy who is getting strong-armed by the U of A to leave his house:

    • I think the Tucson Weekly should have listed Devine’s non-objective relationship with the subject of the story at the beginning of the article, not the end. Just my own bias there — kudos for making it clear in any case.

    • What a sad story. The man’s grandfather built the house in 1917? No wonder he wants to hold his ground. Thanks for bringing attention to this story. In my opinion the UA should pony up some real money to pay for his relocation, not a cheap-ass $100k. You can barely buy a shack with $100k. Let alone the cost of legal fees, inconvenience, relocation, and self-imposed punitive damages for acting like bullying ass-hats.

    • What a sad way to spend the twilight years of your life — getting pissed on by a university that has already made one agreement with you and now is over-anxious to reneg on their deal because you essentially didn’t die fast enough for their plans.

    Please stay on this story. I’m hoping for a happy ending (no, not in a massage sense), though my cynical side won’t be surprised if there’s a bleak one.

  6. On to Tom Danehy’s latest.

    You might not be surprised to discover I think Danehy is typing out his ass again. On the plus side, he gives a very lucid and readable explanation of what “cascading” means. (I always thought it meant “having sex in a pile of laundry detergent.”) On the minus side, he then goes on to use examples that don’t fit his explanation very well, but instead fall into a general category of “groupthink” or “idiocy.”

    I gotta call “bullshit” on Tom’s following paragraph:

    “There is a direct correlation between the amount of fat in a person’s diet and the risk of heart disease. Pretty basic, right? The only trouble is that it’s not true. Never has been.”

    …And we’re supposed to take your word on that, Danehy? Since Danehy is ostensibly a “journalist,” would it kill him to substantiate what he is so confidently insisting? I mean, we aren’t actually supposed to take Danehy at face value on this, are we?

    I don’t think Danehy has a clue what he’s talking about. For one thing, what does “direct correlation” mean? A correlation is usually not direct in the sense of moving from one point to another, such as a causal relationship. It’s a recurring association. I am pretty sure that there are reams of studies establishing a correlation between fatty diets and heart disease.

    So what – the – fuck is Danehy talking about? Editors?

    Danehy explains, “countless clinical trials have failed to establish a link.” Citation(s)? Source(s)? Which ass did Danehy pull this out of, and was it before or after the use of toilet paper?

    Danehy continues:

    “Seventh-day Adventists (who are vegetarians) live about four years longer than do people who don’t follow that particular faith. …the study failed to take into account the fact that Seventh-day Adventists also don’t drink or smoke and generally don’t partake in high-risk behavior, such as having multiple sex partners.”

    What? Having multiple sex partners is a common cause of death among average Americans? Since when? This is a really bizarre detail. But more importantly, the error in reasoning Danehy is describing above does not fit his explanation of “cascading” groupthink. It just fits a general case of flawed reasoning — that is, assuming causation where only correlation has been established.

    Finally, there this: “Clearly, the most destructive example of cascading is that which led to George Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Think back to how one false piece of information led to another and established a base from which still others would spring. The fact that the percentage of Americans who still believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with Sept. 11 is greater than zero points to cascading (and some really dumb Americans).”

    This also doesn’t fit his description of the “cascading” social tendency, which in Danehy’s example was more like a telephone-game from one person to the next. It actually trivializes a much larger and more complex dynamic, as well as the fact that there were propaganda forces at work in a concerted effort to push misinformation and false associations. The only way Danehy’s example would fit this would be if the host of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” were constantly trying to instill a sense of fear in each audience member while framing the trivia questions in a loaded, misleading fashion.

  7. In addition to Tom Danehy, also writing about social stupidity this week is Catherine O’Sullivan.

    This is a really bizarre editorial/column. It basically amounts to the following: “Knowing negative stuff about what’s going on in the real world makes my head hurt! Not only that, but it’s hard on the children! What about the children?!”

    Seriously, that is the column in a nutshell. Nevermind that I generally agree with the sentiment. I just don’t know why O’Sullivan decided to turn her column into a “blame the messenger” rant instead of a “call to action” rant. She says “environmentally correct adults harangue the youth…” Oh, bullshit. Which ones? Harangue them? Really? Tell me their names; I’ll kick their asses. How dare they harange the children?!

    WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!??!?

    O’Sullivan seems to be implying that we should keep young people in a happy bubble of ignorance rather than, y’know, letting them in on the fact that the world has “problems” and “issues” and stuff.

    Let me offer this little attempt at wisdom in response to O’Sullivan’s column:

    Catherine: Yes, knowing about things can make you miserable. But there’s an upside. To me, not knowing about things, and instead being dependent on calculating political hacks (the ones that in the same breath you say “have IQs lower than my dumbest dog” and have “expensive educations” — which is it?) or radio-show demagogues for information, is far more depressing. At least if you know about things, you can call people on their bullshit. If everybody knew what was really going on, then many more of them would call politicians and others on their bullshit. This would lead to far less bullshit. So maybe, just maybe, people want to educate children about the nastier aspects of our world so that they’ll grow up to be well-informed people who call others on their bullshit.

    One other gripe with O’Sullivan’s column: She claims that comedy got really stupid and lowbrow in the 1990s, citing “Dumb and Dumber” as a key dropping point (no pun intended). Yet for somebody who values a more highbrow approach, O’Sullivan uses the word “shit” at least twice and uses a metaphor involving a boot literally kicked up her bunghole.

    Also, “Dumb and Dumber” was an intelligently made movie that featured some pretty hilarious lowbrow humor. I consider it a classic and can quote from it at will (“What’s the soup de jour?” / “That’s the soup of the day” / “That sounds good, I’ll have that!”). Yes, it was ABOUT stupid people; that doesn’t mean IT was stupid. Anyway, did you miss every decade’s movies preceding the 1990s? Even “Birth of a Nation” was pretty fucking stupid (one of the first movies ever to employ cross-cutting). “The Three Stooges” isn’t some philosophical treatise in slapstick form, you know. Ever see a Russ Meyer flick? Personally I thought “Gone With the Wind” was retarded but that might be “cascade theory” in action. I also give you the following 1980’s mega-hits: “Porky’s,” “Bachelor Party,” “Caddyshack” and “Animal House.”

    It’s interesting to note that O’Sullivan uses “Monty Python” to make a point. I assume “Monty Python” is a form of comedy that she agrees with, since there’s certainly intelligence lurking in the corners of their comedy. But I might remind you that they used a lot of potty humor as well. One of the cartoon cutaway scenes (a favorite of mine as a kid) involved a woman at a fancy restaurant saying “I have to powder my nose,” leave the screen, and then you hear loud and extended farting noises. How is this any different from the style of comedy used in “Dumb & Dumber” where Jeff Daniels is having a massive crap due to his coffee being spiked with laxative?

  8. Now on to NINTZEL (cue ominous timpani drums):

    I want to start by pointing out that this blog’s rules state that writers should not engage in “Personal attacks, insults, or threatening language.”

    Here are some things Jim Nintzel writes about John Kromko:
    • “John Kromko’s latest nitwit scheme”
    • “…wackadoodle…”
    • “…the usual bullshit”
    • “Nice way to establish your credibility, John!”
    • “John Kromko killed my dog”

    If that’s not “personal” and “insulting,” then how are you definining those terms? (By the way, the last example is fake….in case you missed that.) Nintzel definitely has animosity toward Kromko. I do appreciate color in writing, and having some fire in one’s belly, and I am glad that Nintzel has a colorful, fire-roasted belly. But… be nice. (“Wackadoodle”? Ouch!)

    I feel that if one is calling somebody else a goof, as Nintzel clearly is Mr. Kromko, it would be good to be precise in one’s own language and explanations. For example, Nintzel states that “Kromko told a major whopper about the city’s trash fee.” Though Nintzel then recounts various aspects of Kromko’s diatribe, Nintzel never actually shows what the “major whopper” was.

    Nintzel seems to regard the correctness of his own position on the trash fee as self-evident: “it’s a routine accounting procedure.” That rather begs the question, doesn’t it? Opponents are saying it is not a routine accounting procedure, and your response is that it is a routine accounting procedure? You might offer a little more to readers than that. Though I suspect you have a much more sober view of all this than Kromko does, I would like something a little better than “they’re crazy, it’s obvious to me because I’ve been watching it for a long time, case closed.”

    It all seems very angry. I don’t trust anger. I trust calm, clear explanation. Why are some people calling this a fee, and others a tax, for one? Also, do other cities charge for garbage removal? Why didn’t Tucson before? What is the basis of critics’ opposition?

    I’d also like to read more about why developers have pumped so much money into opposing this Proposition. Obviously they are worried about their ability to keep business humming if something slows down the city’s growth. It makes me a little uncomfortable to see the Tucson Weekly de-facto siding with them, even if it is for different reasons.

    I’d also like to know what Nintzel is talking about regarding Kromko giving him a “V for Vendetta” DVD. That’s rather an odd little detail…..context? You guys call each other names in public, but are part of a little movie-exchange club? I watched “V for Vendetta” and I thought it all but accused the Bush administration of orchestrating 9/11…so I wouldn’t be surprised if Kromko was into it.

  9. Well, I guess that’s about it for now. I looked over the Music section and it looks good. I don’t really get worked up one way or the other regarding what people say about music. I like the Polyphonic Spree somewhat but I can’t imagine listening to more than one of their songs at a time (if you know the style, you should be able to understand where I’m coming from). Gogol Bordello is pretty good. I think you could have given more space for a more thorough Bruce Springsteen review, because he’s, like, the Boss.

    See you later!

  10. #6: Couldn’t resist some fun with MS Word’s “Find and Replace” (and with hope that The Arizona Daily Star doesn’t cry “infringement” or something)

    Yu might not be surprised toinn discover I think Daanyhe beenin typin out his ass again. On dut plus side, he gives de very lucid n readable splainit da what “cascadin” means. (I always thought it meant “havin sex in de pile da laundry detergent.”) On dut minus side, he dutn goes on toinn use examples dat don fit his splainit very well, but instead fall into de general category da “groupthink” or “idiocy.”
    I gotta call “bullshit” on Tom’s followin paragraph:
    “Dutre beenin de direct correlation between dut amount da fat in de person’s diet n dut risk da heart disease. Pretty basic, right? Dut only trouble beenin dat it’s not true. Never has dun.”
    …N ween supposed toinn take yur word on dat, Daanyhe? Since Daanyhe beenin ostensibly de “journalist,” would it kill him toinn substantiate what he beenin so confidently insistin? I mean, we aintn actually supposed toinn take Daanyhe at face value on dis, are we?
    I don think Daanyhe has de clue what he’s talkin about. For one thin, what doon “direct correlation” mean? De correlation beenin usually not direct in dut sense da movin from one point toinn anodutr, such as de causal relationship. It’s de recurrin association. I am pretty sure dat dutre are reams da studies establishin de correlation between fatty diets n heart disease.
    So what – dut – fuck beenin Daanyhe talkin about? Editors?
    Daanyhe splanin, “countless clinical trials have failed toinn establish de link.” Citation(s)? Source(s)? Which ass did Daanyhe pull dis out da, n was it before or after dut use da toilet paper?
    Daanyhe continues:
    “Seventh-day Adventists (who are vegetarians) live about four years longer than do people who don follow dat particular faith. …dut study failed toinn take into account dut fact dat Seventh-day Adventists also don drink or smoke n generally don partake in high-risk behavior, such as havin multiple sex partners.”
    What? Havin multiple sex partners beenin de common cause da death among average Americans? Since when? Dis beenin de really bizarre detail. But more importantly, dut error in reasonin Daanyhe beenin describin above doon not fit his splainit da “cascadin” groupthink. It just fits de general case da flawed reasonin — dat beenin, assumin causation where only correlation has dun established.
    Finally, dutre dis: “Clearly, dut most destructive example da cascadin beenin dat which led toinn George Bush’s invasion da Iraq. Think back toinn how one false piece da information led toinn anodutr n established de base from which still odutrs would sprin. Dut fact dat dut percentage da Americans who still believe dat Saddam Hussein had somethin toinn do with Sept. 11 beenin greater than zero points toinn cascadin (n some really dumb Americans).”
    Dis also nottin fit his description da dut “cascadin” social tendency, which in Daanyhe’s example was more like de telephone-game from one person toinn dut next. It actually trivializes de much larger n more complex dynamic, as well as dut fact dat dutre were propagna forces at work in de concerted effort toinn push misinformation n false associations. Dut only way Daanyhe’s example would fit dis would be ifn dut host da “Who Wants toinn Be de Millionaire?” were constantly tryin toinn instill de sense da fear in each audience member while framin dut trivia questions in de loaded, misleadin fashion.
    …

  11. What? Having multiple sex partners is a common cause of death among average Americans? Since when?

    Devil’s Advocate sez:

    Who was it that guy who got AIDS? Oh yeah Magic Johnson. And Tim Richmond, whose sad story is well-forgotten because it was mostly buried.

    I’m not saying AIDS is at all a common cause of death, but multiple sex partners puts one at larger risk for sexually-transmitted diseases. Most others are treatable, like Syphilis and other nasties.

  12. Hey Twistie: Thanks for commenting. Let me see if I can clarify.

    I said that Kromko’s scheme was nitwit; I didn’t say he was a nitwit. He’s actually pretty clever, as I’ve noted in the past. Here’s where he has a problem with the truth, though (and I thought this was clear in The Skinny, but maybe it wasn’t; when you write about this stuff as much as I have, sometimes you assume that the readers have already developed some sense of context): He maintains that city officials said they were enacting a garbage tax because garbage expenses went up $23 million a year. He maintains that when people realized that trash-collection expenses hadn’t gone up, city officials changed their story to say that the money was for police and fire. He further maintains that when people realized that police and fire expenses hadn’t gone up by $23 million, then city officials changed their story once more and said the money was for streets. All of these changing stories, he maintains, constitute a “lie.”

    But for years before the garbage fee was instituted, city officials had been pretty consistent with what they had said: By making the Environmental Services Department an enterprise department (meaning it would be supported by user fees), the city would free up $20 million or more a year annually to fund other city departments, including police, fire and transportation. So there was never a suggestion that we needed a garbage-collection fee because garbage collection costs were suddenly skyrocketing. Nor did city officials’ stories change. They said that if Tucson adopted a trash fee–similar to what’s paid by most everyone else in the state–then general fund dollars could be spent elsewhere.

    Creating a trash-collection fee and moving it out of the city’s general fund to free up money is a routine accounting procedure. You may disagree with it and believe that if the city would stop wasting money willy-nilly, it wouldn’t need to turn Environmental Services into an enterprise department, but the change is hardly some sinister scheme to dupe taxpayers.

    As far as the difference between taxes and fees: Generally speaking, a fee is for a specific service, while taxes are more broadly collected and distributed. For example, the garbage fee pays for garbage collection, landfill maintenance and remediation and other costs related to trash pick-up. Your sales taxes go into a big pot of money that’s doled out for police salaries, parks programs such and KidCo and the cost of elections, to name a few.

    As far as why some people want to call it a garbage tax: I would suggest it’s because a tax sounds much worse than a fee, so if you want to repeal it, you call it a tax.

    I don’t harbor any particular animosity toward John Kromko. In fact, I enjoyed out back-and-forth on Arizona Illustrated last week. Over the course of his career, he’s done a lot of good. I just think he’s distorting the truth and misleading people when it comes to Prop 200 and a number of other campaigns he’s been involved with in recent years.

  13. Dog nabbit, Nintzel, you have to go and get all reasonable. What fun is that? But thanks for the clarifications.

    Oh yeah, I liked your “rules for candidates” piece. I had intended to mention that in my previous message, but at that point I was typing-fatigued and forgot. I thought it was a good example of the kind of article that alternative newsweeklies do well, and that don’t fit into the format of daily newspapers. It’s also something I can see reaching a wider audience outside of Tucson (though the intro graphs are laden with local references) because the advice is universal. I do think your article calls for further discussion on the roles of third parties, who historically have been useful as ways to bring grass-roots issues into the mainstream, and also have thrown elections, as Ross Perot did in 1992 and Ralph Nader did in 2000. (Though I believe you are aiming your article at lower-level candidates.) So good job on that. I’m glad you and Kromko have some sort of behind-the-scenes gentleman’s agreement that this is all part of the game. You’ll have to let us all know how you like “V for Vendetta” and whether Natalie Portman is still coffee-pot-hot sans coiffure.

    (I also forgot to comment on Anna Mirocha’s “Police Dispatch. Will do so next message. I do want to mention that Rand Carlson’s cartoons would be PERFECT for the Police Dispatch, as it is crying out for illustrations!)

  14. Okay so let me add one more flurry of self-indugent and unsolicited feedback regarding this week’s “Police Dispatch.”

    Seems to me “police dispatch” is a throwback to the “Police Beat” columns that used to run in the Arizona Daily Wildcat (or do they still?). If you weren’t around during the heyday of this column, it was the #1 most widely read feature of the AZ Wildcat, and all it consisted of were the weirdest police reports of the day. (I actually made an appearance in an edition of Police Beat after getting arrested for trespassing in an under-construction university building while helping a friend make a video for one of his classes, but alas, did not have the foresight to save the article, in part because I was so embarrassed.)

    Anyway, you should read Police Dispatch! It is my new favorite Tucson Weekly section! Anna Mirocha is a genius!

    There are two featured “crimes.” The first one features this beautiful sentence: “the suspected urinators were cited and released to their mothers.”

    That right there is poetry. It tells me more about the human condition than a dozen Tom Danehy articles. Not really, but it makes a great conclusion to an absurd, goofy article about high-school boys lucky enough to be granted use of a gym after hours, yet too short-sighted not to realize that pissing on the floor will end their good fortune.

    The second story, “Motel Mischief,” contains a great mystery: Why does an apparent identity thief have model-rocket materials? I hope Anna Mirocha will don her fedora and go out and do an investigative-reporting follow-up. The readers must know what somebody was going to do with:

    • a box of cell phones
    • syringes
    • various pharmaceuticals
    • shredded credit cards — 7 of which had been taped together
    • a plastic bag containing mail
    • a box of explosives, er, model-rocket parts that had the word “explosives” written on them
    • several AA watch batteries (Huh? AA? Must be a large watch!)
    • a partridge in a pear tree

    The classic line from this article is, “As for the syringes and medications, the motel staff was advised to ‘do what they normally do’ with those types of items.” I love how this sentence leaves their fate hanging.

    Brilliant journalism. Enigmatic yet soul-stirring.

  15. so good to see the pumps been primed round these parts.
    this blog is really getting interesting.
    glad to read insightful writing instead of the previous back slapping kudo mongering and snarky posturing.
    and all those eyeballs may even translate into $$$ if the sales staff plays it right. can’t have a yin without a yang.

  17. — Sin Twister. Thanks for the feedback. That was, um, prolific.

    wow.
    ***
    someone takes the time to write all that and the only response the editor-domo can can muster is a dismissive missive?
    ***
    come on jimmy-james i thought you were better than that.
    ***
    you keep telling readers: tell me what you think of the weekly.
    ***
    and when they give you some decent idea you blow’em off.
    ***
    kinda sad.
    ***
    but it does say volumes about the state of the weekly ship these days.
    ***
    iceberg dead ahead captain.
    ***

  18. If anything came across as dismissive in my response, I apologize. That was not the intent. I was impressed and surprised by Sin Twister’s response.

  19. — If anything came across as dismissive in my response, I apologize. That was not the intent. I was impressed and surprised by Sin Twister’s response.

    wow again. except this time written with respect and a bit humbled by your example. so apologies if i came off like a, well, a dick.
    *
    i think sin made some really valid points. i hope you guys and gals can embrace some of them, the spirit in which they are made and perhaps even address a few of them here.
    *
    i know i’d be interested in reading more.

  20. Thanks Jimmy. I am glad you appreciated the results of my coffee high.

    Back to the melancholia….until the next brew!

  21. More on Tom Danehy’s claim regarding no fatty diet / heart disease link:

    I am trying to figure out why Danehy might have made this claim. There must be some article out there that denies the existence of a causal link (though Danehy says “correlation,” leading me to believe he doesn’t understand the rudimentary difference between correlation and causation).

    I did find this:

    “The relationship between dietary fats and CVD, especially coronary heart disease, has been extensively investigated, with strong and consistent associations emerging from a wide body of evidence accrued from animal experiments, as well as observational studies, clinical trials and metabolic studies conducted in diverse human populations… This finding is supported by the results of several large randomized clinical trials, in which replacement of saturated and trans fatty acids by polyunsaturated vegetable oils lowered coronary heart disease risk.

    – World Health Organization, Population nutrient intake goals for preventing diet-related chronic diseases,5.4.4

    It was from a link at Wikipedia, which I am sure will lead Tom Danehy to reply that “Wikipedia can’t be trusted!” Or whatever.

    So I looked some more, doing a Google search. I found this article on cholesterol and heart disease. The article discussed finds that “high blood cholesterol and heart attacks do not have a causal relationship, but rather are co-symptoms of an unhealthful dietary regime.” In other words, there is a definite correlation between cholesterol (related to fat) and heart disease, but doubts about a causal relationship, since people who eat a lot of fat also tend to eat a lot of sugar and starch.

    Unfortunately, that’s not what Tom Danehy said. He said that the statement, “There is a direct correlation between the amount of fat in a person’s diet and the risk of heart disease” is not true.

    Tom Danehy might have been referring to the book, “The Great Cholesterol Con,” which also denies a causal link between cholesterol and heart disease. But again, that has nothing to do with correlation (note that the linked page also uses “causation” and “correlation” interchangeably).

    I then found this Oct. 6 article in the New York Times, “Diet and Fat: A Severe Case of Mistaken Consensus.” I strongly suggest that you read this article after reading Tom Danehy’s column, because you can see that Danehy clearly based his entire column on it! The whole “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” bit is there (though Tom expanded the explanation), as is the criticism of the CDC’s “food pyramid,” and claims about the lack of a “correlation” (that is, “causation”) between a fatty diet and heart disease.

    The New York Times article does mention a lack of actual correlation — but this is based on a scientific debate that happened in 1957.

    However, here is an article from the University of Buffalo that seems to support Danehy’s claim. It states, “…total fat intake when caloric intake is balanced to expenditure shows little correlation with CHD… It’s consuming more calories than you expend that harms health.” Note the key element here — “when caloric intake is balanced to expenditure.” This means that there is still an overall correlation between a fatty diet and heart disease. The correlation only disappears among those whose lower fat intake is accompanied by a lower intake of other foods (such as carbs and sugars). This would seem to point to serious doubts about a causal link between fat and heart disease. Also, this is one study in a sea of other scientific/health studies, so it is not conclusive.

    For more about the correlations between various fats and heart disease, this Wikipedia page contains a lot of information and references. It goes into more details about trans-fats and other different varieties of fat that affect cell metabolism and specific types of heart disease.

    I think Tom Danehy should be required to read this Wikpedia page about the statement “correlation does not imply causation.” I also think that next time Danehy bases his column on a single New York Times article, he should be required to at least make reference to it so that people have some clue about where he’s getting his ideas and information.

  22. Are we done talking about the water-shortage debate yet? No? Good — here’s an interesting link about a Tennessee town that is running out of water. Could it happen to Tucson?

  23. Hey, everyone: If you post a comment with more than one link in it, and it doesn’t show up right away, be patient. The blog’s spam filter throws comments with too many links into a moderation queue, and I (or another administrator) have to go in and approve ’em. For example, Sin Twister’s last comment was stuck in there. Thanks!

  26. Comparing Tom Danehy’s column to the New York Times article he based it on (without attribution) is a really fun exercise in, uh, compare-and-contrast:
        
    The New York Times: “[C. Everett Koop] was caught in what social scientists call a cascade.”
    Tom Danehy: “There is a phenomenon that social scientists refer to as ‘cascading.'”
        —–
    NY Times: “The studio audience at “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” usually votes for the right answer.”
    Danehy: “Here’s how it works: Let’s say that a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire uses the audience-poll lifeline, on which the audience is almost always right… Let’s assume that a contestant asks a question that a majority of the audience will get right.”
        —–
    NY Times: “But suppose, instead of the audience members voting silently in unison, they voted out loud one after another.”
    Danehy: “However, if the contestant asked that same question to the same audience, but the people had to respond verbally, one after another, it’s almost a mathematical certainty that the outcome would be different (in one direction or another).”
        —–
    NY Times: “And suppose the first person gets it wrong.”
    Danehy: “Suppose the first person gets it wrong.”
        —–
    NY Times: “If the second person isn’t sure of the answer, he’s liable to go along with the first person’s guess.”
    Danehy: “If the second person isn’t absolutely certain of the answer, he’ll probably go along with the first person.”
        —–
    NY Times: “By then, even if the third person suspects another answer is right, she’s more liable to go along just because she assumes the first two together know more than she does.”
    Danehy: “The third person is even less likely to buck what now appears to be a trend, and so on.”
        —–
    NY Times: “Because of this effect, groups are surprisingly prone to reach mistaken conclusions even when most of the people started out knowing better, according to the economists Sushil Bikhchandani, David Hirshleifer and Ivo Welch.”
    Danehy: “Research has shown that groups are surprisingly susceptible to reaching the wrong conclusion, even when a majority of the individuals know better.“
        —–
    NY Times: “If, say, 60 percent of a group’s members have been given information pointing them to the right answer (while the rest have information pointing to the wrong answer), …”
    Danehy: “One such study gave 60 percent of group members information that would lead them toward the correct answer, while the rest were given information that would lead them the other way.”
        —–
    NY Times: “…there is still about a one-in-three chance that the group will cascade to a mistaken consensus.”
    Danehy: “In such cases, there is still a 1-in-3 chance that the group will cascade toward the wrong conclusion.”
        —–
    NY Times: “Cascades are especially common in medicine as doctors take their cues from others…”
    Danehy: “The results are further skewed when people start with (false) preconceived notions and/or strongly held (but false) beliefs.”
        —–
    NY Times: “In the case of fatty foods, that confident voice belonged to Ancel Keys… He became convinced in the 1950s that Americans were suffering from a new epidemic of heart disease because they were eating more fat than their ancestors.”
    Danehy: “Take this basic statement: There is a direct correlation between the amount of fat in a person’s diet and the risk of heart disease.”
        —–
    NY Times: “There were two glaring problems with this theory, as Mr. Taubes, a correspondent for Science magazine, explains in his book. [Multi-graph explanation follows] … [then, later:] But when the theories were tested in clinical trials, the evidence kept turning up negative.”
    Danehy: “Pretty basic, right? The only trouble is that it’s not true. Never has been. It might seem like it should be true, but countless clinical trials have failed to establish a link.”
        —–
    NY Times: “[earlier in the article] Koop… like the architects of the federal ‘food pyramid‘ telling Americans what to eat, went wrong by listening to everyone else. [and later:] The Department of Agriculture’s advice against eating too much fat was issued in 1980 and would later be incorporated in its ‘food pyramid.’ “
    Danehy: “What has happened over the past few decades is that organizations like the U.S. Department of Agriculture (with the ‘food pyramid’), …”
        —–
    NY Times: “That set the tone for decades of news media coverage. Journalists and their audiences were looking for clear guidance, not scientific ambiguity.”
    Danehy: “…along with certain members of the media (who lazily prefer clear, simple statements over correct ambiguity), have cascaded over one another until…”
        —–
    NY Times: “… the fat-is-bad theory became popular wisdom …”
    Danehy: “…the fat intake-heart disease “link” became chiseled in stone.”
        —–
      …At this point the two articles diverge. The Oct. 6 Times article continues discussing how the fat-intake/heart-disease cascade proliferated throughout the medical-research world. The Nov. 1 Danehy column branches off for a couple paragraphs into other subjects. Danehy uses the cascade explanation to question the conventional wisdom of whether a vegetarian diet adds to one’s lifespan. Danehy never pauses to consider that most vegetarians don’t merely omit fat from their diets but attempt to eat healthier foods overall, which would completely change his analysis. Danehy also discusses the Iraq war and WMD, which exist on a whole other plane than scientists who are led to false conclusions, though I think Danehy is correct in his conclusions on this one (a gullible U.S. public sure made it easier for Bush to hoodwink us).
        
    Danehy’s article ends with this: ” The proliferation of “news” outlets, coupled with the blogosphere on the Internet and the ever-shrinking attention span of the average American, pretty much guarantees that cascading is going to get worse. “
        
    Hey, Danehy! I have a pretty good attention span. One thing I remember pretty well is a New York Times writer by the name of Jayson Blair. Remember him?

  28. I strongly suggest that you read this article after reading Tom Danehy’s column, because you can see that Danehy clearly based his entire column on it!

    Reading other peoples’ news articles and rewriting them as columns is pretty common for Tom, it seems.

    But hey, at least it’s not Wikipedia, right?

  29. Oh by the way, Kynn, thanks for reminding me about the similarities between Tom Danehy’s Sept. 13 column and the Aug. 25 piece by Arizona Republic writer Laurie Roberts. (You brought it up in this blog posting, and Danehy even showed up to defend himself against charges of plagiarism.)

    I went back and looked at the two above columns to see if I could find similarities similar to those throughout Danehy’s Nov. 1 piece. They aren’t as cut-and-dried in this case, and don’t follow a line-by-line progression, but…

        ————————
    Roberts: “As she lay dying, Phyllis Martin’s last thoughts were for her disabled grandson. It was noon on a Friday in February, and they’d been hit by a suspected drunken driver while on their way home from preschool.”
    Danehy: “It wasn’t all that newsworthy when Phyllis Martin of Phoenix died that way in February. Martin had just picked up her grandson from school and was heading home when a pickup truck being driven by Gilbert made a sudden swerve and then crossed into oncoming traffic, striking Martin’s car.”
        ————————
    Roberts: “Martin tried to talk in her final moments but could only communicate by looking frantically toward her grandson. She seemed to relax once she knew someone was with the bleeding boy.”
    Danehy: “Martin died at the scene. (The grandson is physically OK.)”
        ————————
    Laurie Roberts: “Gilbert, 36, told Phoenix police she’d had two beers and a Vicodin. Blood tests put her alcohol level at 0.328 percent, more than four times the legal limit.”
    Tom Danehy: “First off, Gilbert’s blood-alcohol level tested at .328, more than four times the legal limit. She told police that she’d had two beers and maybe a Vicodin.”
        ————————
    Roberts: “Yet police didn’t confiscate her driver’s license. Had this been a DUI case, Sgt. Joel Tranter told me, they would have taken it and notified the state Motor Vehicle Division so it could administratively suspend Gilbert’s license. But police don’t pursue DUI charges in manslaughter cases, for fear of jeopardizing the more serious charges.”
    Danehy: “The police didn’t confiscate her driver’s license, because they assumed that she was going to be charged with some type of vehicular manslaughter. Amazingly, if someone is “merely” driving drunk, the police will take the driver’s license away, and it can be administratively suspended… However, as a policy, prosecutors don’t pursue DUI charges in manslaughter cases for fear of gumming up the works judicially.”
        ————————
    Roberts: “In other words, if you drive drunk, you lose your license. But if you drive drunk and kill someone, you can keep driving.”
    Danehy: “This leads to a situation in which driving drunk leads to a loss of your license–but driving drunk and killing someone amounts to a free pass to continue your highway hunting.”
        ————————
    Roberts: “I don’t understand how it took nearly five months to bring charges against the driver accused of killing Phyllis Martin.”
    Danehy: “For administrative reasons, the charges weren’t officially brought until July, five months after the death of Phyllis Martin.”
        ————————
    Roberts: “Or how, once charged, her bail was set at a mere $5,000, even though she’d been arrested just three weeks earlier and accused of driving drunk again.”
    Danehy: “Oh, Gilbert was arrested and charged, but her bail was set at a stunningly low $5,000, even though, as it turned out, she had been busted for DUI just three weeks before the fatal crash.”
        ————————
    Roberts: “Meanwhile, back in Phoenix, prosecutors brought manslaughter and aggravated assault charges against Gilbert in July and asked that bail be set at $75,000. So, of course, Commissioner Eartha Washington set it at $5,000.”
    Danehy: “(Prosecutors had asked that her bail be set at $75,000, but Commissioner Eartha Washington slashed it down to a point where Gilbert could see daylight for $500.)”
        ————————
    Roberts: “Four months after the fatal crash, just before midnight on June 27, Gilbert was again stopped on suspicion of DUI after Marana police say they spotted her driving up onto the sidewalk then drifting across several lanes and up onto the center median.”
    Danehy: “On the night of June 27–before Maricopa County brought charges against Gilbert–she was stopped by Marana police on suspicion of DUI after her car weaved through traffic, drove up on the sidewalk, cut across several lanes and ended up on the median.”
        ————————
    Roberts: “Gilbert, who had an open can of Bud Light in her cup holder, said she’d had two beers and was on four medications, according to the police report. A preliminary breath test put her at 0.243 percent.”
    Danehy: “Gilbert had an open container of beer in her cup holder, and told the cops she’d had (ahem) two beers. She added that she was also on four different medications. At least one of those medications must work counter to Vicodin, because this time, her blood alcohol was .243, only three times the legal limit.”
        ————————
    Roberts: “Until then, Gilbert remains out of jail, free to drive the streets of Phoenix but hopefully not the sidewalks.”
    Danehy: “If she sticks to her established patterns of driving, she should be pretty easy to spot, since she’ll probably either be on the sidewalk, on the median or hurtling into oncoming traffic at a high rate of speed.”
        ————————
     
    ////////////////////////////////////////
    So there you have it. The point-for-point rewrite of the New York Times piece wasn’t a one-time practice by Danehy. He has done it before. Admittedly, the column does shuffle around various facts and points more, so that if you just skim the articles you can’t tell there’s any copying going on.

    In his Sept. 13 defense, Danehy states the following:

    Danehy defending himself: “I’m somewhat puzzled by these remarks. Yes, I read Laurie Roberts’ column. She did a good job.”

    Danehy admits a familiarity with the source material, and praises its quality.

    Danehy defending himself: “Are you saying that if two people write about the same thing on different days, whoever did it later is a plagiarist?”

    Danehy rhetorically throws out a straw-man argument suggesting that since not all instances of similar columns are plagiarism, therefore no instances of similar columns are plagiarism. Needless to say, this is flawed reasoning.

    Danehy defending himself: “I could show you dozens (if not hundreds) of examples of one columnist picking up a story from another source and writing about it. In fact, how else would a columnist come up with topics? We all read, watch TV, hear things on the radio, get e-mail from people, hear talk on the street…but we don’t get things from Wikipedia.”

    Danehy further defends himself by saying “I gotta get my ideas somewhere!” but still dodges the more crucial question of to what extent he gets his facts and ideas from a single source, and to what extent that is defensible.

    Danehy defending himself: “As for the facts lining up, that’s why they call them facts. I did my own checking (not that I needed to; Roberts is first-rate, but it was right for me to do so) and the facts are the facts. I think it would only be blog-worthy if my ‘facts’ were different from hers.”

    Tom Danehy as much as admits that he cribbed facts from the Roberts piece. He then says “I did my own checking,” which is questionable. There is one place at the end of the piece where Danehy lists a different bail amount than Roberts does, since at the time of Roberts’ writing the bail was still being speculated), and Danehy was writing his piece nearly a month later. So Danehy probably made a phone call to get the correct bail amount.

    Either way, “the facts are the facts” is not a valid defense for getting 99% of your facts from somebody else’s article. Nor is it a defense for Danehy’s rewrite of the John Tiernan’s New York Times article.

    Danehy defending himself: “So, yes, she wrote about it first (in Phoenix) and I wrote about it (in Tucson) after she did. In all seriousness, would you be less offended if I started the column with, ‘Hey, I read about this horrible thing in a Phoenix paper, so let me pass it along to you…’?”

    That would be a more honest approach — giving credit to the person and the publication where you are getting your information. It’s more journalistic and ethical by a longshot.

    Danehy defending himself: “The heroin anecdote is mine, but if Laurie Roberts wants to write about it, I won’t call her a plagiarist.”

    Danehy’s heroin anecdote consists of two paragraphs in the middle of his column. Danehy uses it as an aside, flourishing with dialogue, and then continues with the “rewrite” part of the column.

    What do the rest of you think of all this?

  30. Okay, Sin Twister, here we go. I read the book “Good Calories, Bad Calories” by Gary Taubes. A friend of mine sent it to me, knowing that I have written on such topics in the past. I found it fascinating, as (obviously) did the writer for the New York Times. I do not currently read the New York Times, but I can’t say I never have. I have read it on occasion in the past. When I visited my daughter at Cornell, there were free copies lying around and I would read them. That was a couple years ago. I don’t read ANY papers online. NONE. EVER. I’m old-fashioned; I want a newspaper in my hands. (Steve Emerine and Emil Franzi occasionally e-mail me columns from various sources; one or two might come from the NYT, but nobody ever sent me that article.) I know that the Times is available at some places here in town, but at four or five bucks for the Sunday paper, that’s a bit steep for me. (I think the weekday paper costs $1.25; also too steep.) Just to be clear, I read the Star every day, USA Today every weekday, the Citizen occasionally, and The Arizona Republic three or four times per week, but mostly for the sports. Sometimes I see things in other papers that I find interesting and would like to write about. I’ve admitted that. I asked a Journalism prof about it and was told it’s not unethical by any measure. In the future, I will mention any source that might be pertinent. (Doing so will cut into my word count, making it even more difficult to make a point–especially on a complex topic–but at least your mind will be at ease.) As for the similarities in language, the NYT guy and I both read the same book! There are only so many ways to state something. It IS called “cascading” and it IS a term used by “social scientists.” There are some phrases that are VERY similar. I will go through the book and find the appropriate phrases and then you can spend all your time accusing me AND the NYT guy of plagiarism. When a person reads something, individual words and complete phrases stick in their minds. That’s pretty normal. Norman Mailer once said that the secret of being a writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remembered it from. (Bad grammar, but you get the point.) Before I forget, the “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire” example is very common. It’s been discussed in science journals and textbooks. I first heard it years ago in a logic and probability class that my daughter was taking at the UA. (I even wrote a column about attending that class for my daughter while she was away playing volleyball; you can look it up.) Perhaps I should have mentioned the professor’s name and gone back to ask him where he got HIS information. I’ve also read many articles on cascading. There are many complex examples that would take pages to explain. Instead, in the interest of brevity, I used the common one (the one about the 60-40 split and the one-in-three chance of cascading in the wrong direction, the one that was in the book and elsewhere), and you have a snit. Please tell me what would satisfy you. Do you want me to apply strict journalistic techniques to every column, so that each will sound as though I’m covering the police beat, or can I have a little latitude so that some personality and/or passion might sneak onto the page? Should I only write about my own experiences, so that way nobody else will cover the same topic? Should I stop reading, lest some phrases slip into my head? Should I check with you first before I write so you can okay the subject matter and methodology? At first, I felt a bit weird about the similarities between the NYT piece and mine, especially since I never read that piece before tonight (Nov. 3). I realize that the NYT guy and I were both moved by the book and used interesting parts of it to make points. I thought your points were valid, if easily explainable. But then I read your response to my explanation of the Laurie Roberts column and you just come off as whiny. I did read her column and then I wrote about the same subject; I admitted that. You think there’s something sinister there. I disagree. (And so do Jornalism professors.) Lots and lots of really good columnists do that. And you can throw out “straw man” stuff all you want. What’s wrong with my facts lining up with hers? In closing, I told Jimmy that, in the future, I would cite any pertinent sources (like the book, which I’ll mention in a future column). I hope that helps, but I get the funny feeling that it won’t.

  31. You’re trying to cover your ass. I would have been willing to buy into your line of BS, if only for the sake of letting you off the hook, if you hadn’t taken the extraordinarily jackass-ish step of calling me “whiny.” Who’s whining here? You’re the one who plagiarized somebody else’s article and now are complaining that somebody caught you in the act. It’s there in black-and-white. The similarities are too constant — graph after graph after graph — not to be cooincidence, and trying to pin the blame on author John Tiernan somehow is utterly screwed up.

    A quick recap:
    NY Times: “If, say, 60 percent of a group’s members have been given information pointing them to the right answer (while the rest have information pointing to the wrong answer), …”
    Danehy: “One such study gave 60 percent of group members information that would lead them toward the correct answer, while the rest were given information that would lead them the other way.”

    Sorry, but there is NO WAY you just happened to write nearly the same exact sentence, with the exact same phrases. Cover your ass all you like, blame the other guy, whatever. But the words don’t lie.

    Jeez, man, is it really so hard for you to understand that REWORDING SOMEBODY ELSE’S WORK AND THEN CALLING IT YOUR OWN WITH NO ATTRIBUTION AT ALL IS A BREACH OF JOURNALISTIC ETHICS? By all means print out the line-by-line comparison and show it your journalism professor friend and come back and tell us what he says about it. This isn’t some Norman Mailer deal where you’re just recycling somebody else’s anecodte in your own colorful retelling. It’s an offensive practice that insults your readers and abuses the priveleges of your post as a columnist.

    Personally I have nothing against you. You’ve written kajillions of enjoyable, creative, fun-to-read columns full of wit and insight and so on. For a long time I’ve considered you one of the best writers at the Tucson Weekly. So I don’t know what your problem was here….I’m trying to come up with scenarios in my mind like, “Tom had a really bad week and didn’t have time and the deadline was approaching,” or, “Tom meant to paraphrase the article more generally but ended up sliding into copying it because he was in a hurry and was 1/3 of the way into a bottle of Jack Daniels,” or “Tom wanted to relive how it felt when he was young and writing a college report and rewrote his friend’s report from the previous year,” or something.

    It’s scarier yet to imagine that you actually have rationalized re-writing other people’s work as an acceptable practice — and from all appearances that’s what has really happened her. I think you probably never imagined that somebody would recognize how much your column resembled the NY Times piece. I never would have found it if I hadn’t been irritated at your mis-use of the term “correlates,” and then doubly annoyed at the arrogance with which you made this assertion while failing to offer any substantiation. You might as well have written “fuck you, I know more than you do” to your readers at that point.

    So I got on Google, started searching, and I began to find articles that supported the jist of what you were saying. Then I found the NY Times article. I didn’t even realize at first how closely linked it was to your piece. I had some OCD and decided to lay them out side by side for fun. I was having fun evaluating the Weekly (actually, that started off as just one message, then I got carried away) and felt like continuing with a focus on your article. I was pretty surprised when I found out how much the articles matched. I posted my message, then later I kind of felt bad about it, because I realized it would probably get you in trouble. This morning I had a dream with Jimmy Boegle and Jim Nintzel in it, so obviously I felt guilty. I thought about how you have a radio show and all these other connections and I hate to think of that getting screwed up for you.

    At this point, I think you’ve gotten enough message from me. I am glad you will be citing your sources from now on. As far as I’m concerned Jimmy Boegle is more than welcome to delete this entire exchange if he likes. All I really wanted to do was to riff on the Weekly articles and hopefully inspire other people to participate int he blog and have healthy discussions and debates.

  32. ehhhhh…. i have mixed feelings about all this

    1. pissed off and offended
    2. not wanting to cause real trouble

    time to walk away

  33. This morning I had a dream with Jimmy Boegle and Jim Nintzel in it, so obviously I felt guilty.

    Wait… what?

    As names on the Internet* or as people in real life?

    * – Internet dreams = Dreaming about being on the computer using this blog, or Wikipedia, or something.

  36. — You’re trying to cover your ass.

    the weekly covers his ass as well.

    dan-o can spew innacurate and even possibly lifted text with occassional racist at worst ignorantly bigoted at best text and from waht i can tell the weekly editorial position is: he can write whatever he wants so long as we don’t get sued.

    i don’t get it myself. but he’s been around for long time like some of the other charecters over there so i think he’s pretty much iron clad and above censure.

    i also get the opinion he might think his shit don’t stink based on his failure to embrace some legit journalistic pointsabout his prose.

    but what do i know

    que electric guitar (w/apologies to oz and company):

    bwa bwa bwa bwa bwa.
    badda-badda-babba-ba-ba-ba.

    “I AM IRON CLAD!”

    Has he lost his mind?, Can he see or is he blind?
    Can he walk at all? Or if he moves will he fall?
    Is he live or dead? I see thoughts within his head.
    We’ll just pass him there. Why should we even care?

    He was turned to steel in the great magnetic field!
    When he traveled time for the future of mankind.
    Nobody wants him He just stares at the world.
    Planning his vengeance that he will soon unfurl.
    Now the time is here for Iron Clad to spread fear.
    Vengeance from the grave kills the people he once saved.

    Nobody wants him they just turn their heads.

    Nobody helps him now he has his revenge.

    Heavy boots of lead fills his victims full of dread.
    running as fast as they can Iron Clad lives again.

    bwa bwa bwa bwa bwa.
    badda-badda-babba-ba-ba-ba…etc.

  37. Sin Twister,
    As I said, I’ll be more careful in the future to cite sources. I don’t have a “fuck you” attitude and it’s obvious from reading your stuff that I don’t know more than you. I do find it amazing that I write 1,000 words and you pick out the word “whiny.” If you’re coming at somebody with a chainsaw in your right hand and a machine gun in your left, you probably shouldn’t flinch from the blood splattering. (I probably could have done without the “whiny” but it was late and I don’t do my best at that time of night. You, however, were still going strong at 1:37!) However, you have made your point, and as hard as it may be for you to believe this, I sincerely appreciate your efforts. I will do all that I can so that this exchange is never repeated. I can take all the “Tom sucks” in the world. I don’t like to be accused of not being at least semi-professional. You can believe me or not; I didn’t read that article before last night. And, in my twisted defense, if I HAD read the NYT piece before I wrote my column, I would have worked to disguise it. Take care and keep up the exhaustive work, just on somebody else next time, please. As for “King Marlow” and his penchant for screaming “racist,” oh, it’s not even worth it.

  38. The lesson from all the above being that correlation and causation, considered together really can be dat real trickn bitch we all hearin in de schoolin up…

  39. — As for “King Marlow” and his penchant for screaming “racist,” oh, it’s not even worth it.

    oh that wacky danehy he’s done it again!
    can’t wait for his next installment of racial stereotype hilarity.

  40. Tom, thanks for taking this all down a notch. I’m just going to let it lie….it’s between you and Mr. Boegle. Anyway…be sure to give Emil “Ann Coulter is groovy” Franzi hell.

  42. dear dan-o,
    i realize i’m caustic at times. and my last post does nothing to heal the wounds you and other staff members have appreantly suffered from what my misguided and non-witty banter.
    i also know my concerns over the racial stereotypes perpetrated in your recent column about hispanics (plus the headline not written by you) has caused some to roll their eyes with a plea for enough already.
    but i’m sure too rosa parks saw many eyes roll when she took that seat on the back of the bus.
    your defense position (and that of other staff members is understood).
    and in your heart i understand that you do not beleive you could help support negative racial stereotypes because as you stated, some of your best friends and family members are minorities.
    but, in light of all that, perhaps we can all be just a bit better.
    perhaps we can all strive to overcome and improve what me not want to beleive in our own hardwiring.
    so in that spirit i present to you, your readers and your fellow staff an link that might help in the future. just a few things to think about when writing your next minority report column or an editor tackles a headline.
    http://www.yale.edu/ypq/articles/oct99/oct99b.html
    all the best.
    king marlow the helping dick

  43. Election predictions: Prop 200 will be much closer than what was foreseen here. No more than ten percentage points, either way. Followed up by a story on “Prop Opposition 101. If you’re 20 points ahead in the polls, you don’t need to raise half a million dollars in the final month, at a time when many voters have already mailed in their ballots.”

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