It sure is easy to react emotionally to all of the bad news these days. I do it myself, daily, whenever I look at Twitter or cable news.
There will be some new outrage — cops, statues, Google, corporate cowardice — and I’ll want to rail at the heavens. Instead, I will retreat to my bathroom, close the door, and yell at the toilet bowl.
This can be problematic, as I live in an apartment and the vents allow my voice to carry to the neighbors upstairs. They must wonder why I harbor such hostility toward my toilet bowl.
At any rate, I’m certain I am not alone. I’m guessing there are millions of relatively quiet Americans who will finally do some big-time venting of their own in November.
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Can we please stop saying that conservatives hold a 5-4 majority in the Supreme Court? It should be obvious by now that John Roberts has joined the liberals.
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This is a little trick used by devious news reporters, mostly in the print media but also by TV and video hacks: When you are writing something and do not particularly want to include one side’s opinion, you wait until deadline looms, then call the person and ask for a comment. You cross your fingers and hope that the person does not actually answer your call, so that you can leave a message.
You wait an hour or so, and then publish/broadcast your story. When you say that so-and-so did not immediately provide comment, what you do not say is that you only gave them an hour to reply.
I know this trick, because I would occasionally use it myself, back in my misbegotten youth when I was a (gulp) newspaper reporter.
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Terrible Thing to Admit, But True:
I will be watching the Trump rally tonight not because I expect anything new from Trump, but rather to see what kind of circus develops in Tulsa.
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