The Column That Never Was
The column that I was hired to write for a certain Queens weekly has been canceled before the first piece was even published. That piece, a critical look at the fall-out from Congressman Greg Meeks’ support for CAFTA, did not appear in this past Thursday’s issue, although an editorial lavishing praise on the Congressman for his championing of banks over people, was featured rather prominently.
I called to find out what happened, and was told the next day that Rep. Meeks had called the newspaper to complain about the previous post that appeared on this blarg. That’s all, she wrote.
The managing editor – who hired me – explained over and over that “integrity” is really important to the paper, and that I had really crossed a line by posting the Congressman’s voicemail message to me, without explaining that I had called him first. Of course, I explained that I hadn’t called him, and that that’s what made his personal phone call to me so noteworthy, and odd. She explained that she hadn’t actually read the piece so much as glanced at it over the shoulder of the publisher, who was livid about the whole affair. (The publisher, it should be noted, was hectoring me about how labor’s position on CAFTA was “illiberal” within seconds of my being hired and explaining my first column.) She also hadn’t read the actual submitted column itself.
Again explaining how “ethics” were so important to this paper, she asked me if I understood their position. I said, well, no, I didn’t, really, since nothing was misrepresented on my website or in the column (neither of which, again, she had read), to which she finally answered something along the lines of “well, I guess you’re just not a good fit for this paper.”
This, finally, was an answer I could accept. This is a paper that does not endorse candidates, that takes no strong positions on controversial matters (aside from that perennial controversy of curbing one’s dog). This is a paper that wants opinion writers who have no strong opinions. That’s me out, comrades.
I hold no ill will towards the paper, although I am annoyed at having been jerked around all summer. I would rather have been rejected from the start, so I could focus my energies on writing for a newspaper that has enough backbone to withstand an angry phone call from an amateurish Congressman, and genuinely wants to drive home to their readers three lanes of political traffic, instead of just the middle of the road.
What’s the Frequency, Leslie?
The Writers Guild of America, East, has been without a contract with the major networks since the first of April. The networks are demanding concessions in wages and work rules. The union will be staging a lunchtime rally in front of the CBS Broadcast Center (located at 524 West 57th Street) next Wednesday, the 27th of April, from 1:00 until 2:00.
If you are free, you should go, not only because you support union workers but because you demand quality television. You do realize that this whole “reality” television craze is just a union-busting strategy, don’t you? Not only are there no writers (hence, no writers union), but the editors are not covered by that union’s contract and most of the on-location crews are non-union, too!
Go to the rally as “concerned viewers for quality television.” Bring
signs: “Sick of Survivor!” “No More ‘Reality’ Give Us Fantasy!”
Does the NY Times Have a Homophobic Mandate?
Urban life for the straight guy is apparently quite the minefield these days. With all these homosexuals and metrosexuals running around, pinching bottoms and getting pedicures, a regular guy has to be ever-vigilant, lest an innocent dinner with another regular guy friend end in a mutual suck-fest. Thank goodness for those arbiters of social interactions at the NY Times Style section, who this week shine a light on an act that most adult men have been engaging in for as long as we can remember, but, well, might be a little gay: The Man Date.
Although the term was admittedly coined for the article, it already comes with a lengthy set of definitions and rules:
Simply defined a man date is two heterosexual men socializing without the crutch of business or sports. It is two guys meeting for the kind of outing a straight man might reasonably arrange with a woman. Dining together across a table without the aid of a television is a man date; eating at a bar is not. Taking a walk in the park together is a man date; going for a jog is not. Attending the movie “Friday Night Lights” is a man date, but going to see the Jets play is definitely not.
The author if this article, the absurdly named Jennifer 8. Lee, is clearly seeking the cultural cachet of coining a cutesy buzzword that will spread virally until it winds up in your grandparents’ vocabulary and Webster’s dictionary. And for this inauspicious goal she trots out tired old gay panic tropes? The Times deserves to get some letters about this.
Popeapalooza!
As the round-the-clock Pope Deathwatch coverage on the cable news channels shifted from Friday night to early Saturday morning, and the Pontiff stubbornly lived a little longer, I am a little surprised that CNN didn’t change their news banner from “Pope Nears Death” to “Pope: Not Dead Yet” or “Pope: Any Minute Now.”
However, as soon as he passed on (a day after April Fools, alas), the news channels and websites immediately rolled out their long-in-the-can obituaries, and sidebars on pomp and ceremony and Papal bookmaking.
The best so far?
The London Guardian’s obituary notes that the original author of the obit died long before Karol Wojtyla, in 1994 to be precise.
Fox News inevitably credits John Paul II with bringing down Communism. It’s amazing how many people it took to “single-handedly” defeat the Red Menace. Actually, Lech Walesa only gives him half the credit:
“Fifty percent of the collapse of communism is his doing,” Walesa told The Associated Press on Friday. “More than one year after he [visited Poland], we were able to organize 10 million people for strikes, protests and negotiations. Earlier we tried, I tried, and we couldn’t do it. These are facts. Of course, communism would have fallen, but much later and in a bloody way. He was a gift from the heavens to us.”
The Washington Post, in the most incisive and even handed analysis of the promises, disappointments and contradictions of John Paul’s papacy that I have read so far notes:
But over the years, it became less clear if his popularity translated into moral authority. Communism in Poland was an easy, familiar target and his victory was clean. But later in his pontificate, John Paul began to focus on more difficult targets such as capitalism. And here, the will of the people was not always on his side…Ultimately, he was hard to categorize in the American context. The terms liberal and conservative “just don’t apply to him,” said Mary Anne Glendon, the philosopher. He opposed abortion and the death penalty; he was equally passionate about the role of the male priesthood as he was about workers’ rights. Conservatives accepted his teachings on morality but played down his emphasis on social justice and the limits of the free market. Liberals did the opposite. “But you can’t pick and choose,” Glendon said.