The headlines:
Judge threatens Trump with jail over gag order violations
Judge fines Trump $9,000, threatens jail for contempt in hush money trial
The response:
“Do it! Do it! Lock him up! Lock him up!”
The irony would be delicious.
Mild Rant
Mindlessly net surfing, I encountered stories that mildly attracted me, just to see what they were about. They were probably among twenty stories of this kind that I encountered. These two, though, pressed my Rant button.
Take One: Atlanta home demolished
That’s what it says on the Bing search page. MSN, AP News, USA Today, and others are covering the tale with headlines like this one from AP.
Woman returns from vacation to find Atlanta home demolished
Makes it sound to me as if the destroyed home was the place she was living in. But no.
From the article: ‘“It’s been boarded up about 15 years, and we keep it boarded, covered, grass cut, and the yard is clean,” she said. “The taxes are paid and everything is up on it.”’
It’s been vacant and boarded up for fifteen years. While I admit that someone made a big mistake and demolished a vacant, boarded up home by accident, and that would be upsetting, I think the way the story is projected is wholly misleading.
Take Two: Former Teammates Now Opponents
Yes, this is what’s on ESPN/NFL’s page: a story about two NFL quarterbacks.
TEAMMATES TURNED OPPONENTS
DOLPHINS-EAGLES: 8:20 P.M. ET
The way this story is presented, they make it sound as if the NFL isn’t full of college teammates who get drafted by NFL teams and end up playing against one another.
This article focuses on Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa, quarterbacks who played at Alabama. Hurts was the starter. With a record of 28-2 and a national championship, he was highly regarded and respected, and definitely capable. But Alabama was being shut out. So he was pulled and Tua was put into the game.
Gosh, that never happens in a football! Coaches are always very careful about these things, putting players’ feelings and reputations above winning (yes, that is snark). I can’t think of any other time that a player who wasn’t doing well was benched so another player could be tried, neither in college or the pros. (Yes, that was more snark. It’s a snarky kind of day.)
Fast forward to this year. Hurts now plays for the Eagles and lost in the last Superbowl and Tagovailoa quarterbacks the Miami Dolphins. The two will meet again when their teams play today. Hence, the story.
Yes, I read both stories. Fortunately, they’re not major events. Sure, it’s upsetting to the woman to lose her vacant other home this way; I’d be pissed, too, if someone went to the wrong address and tore the place down. And the way the company has handled it (so far) does nothing to redeem them. But no one was hurt.
Likewise, the football story was a small distraction in an otherwise war-weary and politically numb world, a story significant or meaningful to some serious fans of the teams or players involved, but net fodder for the rest of us.
And yes, in a way, I’m doing the same thing: posting net fodder. But I’m doing it to distract myself from doing other things.
Hope it wasn’t too boring. Cheers
Friday’s Wandering Thought
He read the headline and then the story.
Yes, because things were going so well for the planet’s humanity. A zombie virus is the perfect addition.
Wednesday’s Wandering Thought
Cruising the morning headlines, one hooked his brain. “First public erection.”
Wait, what? He went back. Ah, “First public execution.”
Oh. That’s alarming in a different way.
Definitely not good to read the news without first having his morning coffee.
Four Headlines
I dreamed last night that I read four headlines.
I was online on my laptop in my home office. The headlines were presented in online editions of major newspapers and websites. Each was on a different subject and included columns beneath them, with articles surrounding them, just like genuine articles. One article included a photograph. All the headlines carried good news.
I clicked on the articles to read more and began searching for greater information. But I realized that I was dreaming. These were from the future.
Then I awoke, completely befuddled about whether I had dreamed those headlines or that the stories had all taken place. I consumed time sorting the current date and the headlines and establishing that I’d dreamed all of that. With some amusement, I fell back onto the old idea, maybe those headlines were from the real world and this was the dream. That would have been great because they were pleasing headlines and stories.
Talk about your fake news. Now we have dream news. Maybe that’s how some fake news evolved; they started from nuggets of dream news.
I’m not revealing any of the headlines or their subjects. I don’t want to jinx them.
They were very good headlines.
Michael Seidel, writer 