Tom Horgen Can't Write

I want to punch Tom Horgen in the face. His writing is pathetic and his articles are a joke, but his picture in the paper--with that impish smirk--settles it for me. He must be punched in the face. Preferably by my fist.

In his most recent article he wrote about places to go during the week, and he wrote something to the effect of, "You've heard of weekend warriors. Well now you can be a weeklong warrior." I mean, like, wow. That is one impressive turn of phrase. It puts Shakespeare to shame. It humbles Byron. Langston Hughes is totally kicking himself for not having thought of it first.

With the unemployment rate as high as it is, it irks me that people who are bad at their job still have jobs. If I were an employer and I had an employee who wasn't turning out stellar work, I'd be interviewing. There's a vast pool of incredibly talented people out there right now, so I don't understand why people who can't write well, or (in the case of the receptionist at my dentist's office) can't figure out how to file an insurance claim, or don't perform well still have jobs.

I think that this would be the perfect time for the Star Tribune to reinvent itself. Unload some of the people who aren't the best writers, let Kim Ode get back to writing columns (please!), and bring on some people who can do better than "weekend warrior...weeklong warrior".

The one good thing about Tom Horgen's articles is that they let me know where NOT to go. It's obvious that he's the type who likes to party with the frat boy, "let's take over Mayslack's and run down the street barking" kind of crowd. I'll forego the priviledge.

Lame, lame, go away

The front page of today's paper is sporting a giant, glittering example of a crappy rhyming title: "Trapped on a plane, instant fame". This is not a rhyme, this is a near rhyme, and my take on this is, if a near rhyme is as close as you can get, skip the damn rhyme!

Here, I'll fix it for them: "Trapped on a plane, instant fame/The Star Tribune is totally lame". There, now it's a real rhyme.

I swear I'll write about something other than rhyming headlines, but for the moment that's all I have time for, since I'm starting a new job today and have to catch the bus in about an hour.

Katherine Kersten in the Sierra Maestra

Katherine Kersten doesn't like the way the mainstream media are nice to Obama. In her September 13th column, she complains that the "mainstream media" like Obama too much. She mentions the "mainstream media" three times: "The mainstream media seem dumbfounded that any thinking person could object to President Obama's speech to schoolchildren on Sept. 8...why are the mainstream media so clueless about the anger and disillusionment growing among independents and conservatives...today, average Americans are beginning to see something in Obama the mainstream media can't." Apparently, Kersten thinks she writes for Citypages. Well, I have a little message for her:

Hey, Lady, you write for the Minneapolis Star Tribune--that's a newspaper that serves a major metropolitan area, and it's not one of those alternative media papers that they give away for free in gas stations and gay bars. You, Katherine Kersten, are a part of the mainstream media.

This reminds me of my second year in college, when, in my International Law lecture, a student was making derisive remarks about "elites" when the professor broke in and said, "Excuse me, but you're at the most expensive college in the country. You're all elites."

Kersten conviniently forgets that there are plenty of people who are "disillusioned" with Obama who also are major players within the mainstream media. Fox News averages 3.3 million viewers daily--it's not some piddly little station that only comes in when you constantly tweak the antannae while standing on tin foil. Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, even Tom Bernard--these are all people who don't have a lot of good things to say about Obama, and they are all part of the mainstream media.

Kersten writes as if she, Bernard, O'Reilly and Limbaugh were a band of rebels in the mountains, like Che and Fidel in the Sierra Maestra. They aren't, though, and Fox News isn't Radio Venceremos (that's a reference to El Salvador, not Cuba, just FYI). Frankly, if Katherine Kersten hates the mainstream media so much, she really ought to stop writing for them.

Instead, she should buy a ham radio and a turtle.

The Time for Silly Mistakes is Past

Listen up, kids: today we get a lesson in grammar and it's right there on the front page! In the far left column on page A1, the headline reads, "The Time for Games is Passed". This phrase, which is repeated in the body of the article, comes from the speech President Obama made at Target Center yesterday. What's the problem, you ask? The problem is that "the time for games is passed" is incorrect. The correct sentence should read "the time for games is past."

Let's break it down, shall we?

P-a-s-t is a noun, adjective or adverb. In the above example, "past" describes "the time for games". "Past" is synonymous with "over", meaning that the sentence could read "the time for games is over" and still make sense.

P-a-s-s-e-d, on the other hand, is the past (see? adjective!) tense of the verb "to pass". "The time for games is passed" has a tense problem, since "is" is present tense of the verb "to be", and "passed" is past tense. This is a sentence that can't make up its mind. It should be written, "The time for games has passed".

Since "passed" and "past" are phonetically identical, it's possible that someone transcribed the speech incorrectly, but this error shouldn't have made its way onto the front page of the newspaper. Sure, it's possible that this mistake originated somewhere in the Obama camp, but if that's the case, the Star Tribune editors should have made it clear that this wasn't the paper's mistake by including the [sic] bracket. The fact that [sic] appears nowhere on the page indicates one of three things: a) this was the Star Tribune's mistake and the editors ran out of espresso, or b) this mistake originated elsewhere and the editors didn't catch it, or c) the editors didn't know that they could use a [sic] bracket to exonerate them from this foul-up. Whether the answer is a, b or c, the end verdict is stil the same: this mistake smacks of unprofessionalism.