Slow Parade

It’s not the steam-driven linotypes, it’s the horse-drawn wagons that are the problem.

Once, some years ago, my husband was working on a history project for which he needed news stories in California about California becoming a state. So I got to help him by going through the microfilms. We knew, of course, exactly when California had become a state, so we started there. And it was interesting, to watch the long interval of speculation about California statehood, the arrival belated news about an earlier maneuver that indicated likely defeat, complete with an explanation of how the politics of slavery was affecting California’s chances at statehood, and how finally, long after California had officially become a state, the Californians got to find out about it.

Of course, they really were waiting either for the horses to arrive or for some boat to sail around from the East Coast to San Francisco.

i read in the paper today that bhutto managed to defeat truman in the 1948 presidential race.

the new Pakistani general, he’s just been elected–not elected, this guy just took over office

The title you’re looking for, John, is “decider.” The general Pakistani guy in that Arab nation is called the decider of Pakistania.

I know that the house has said to me and me alone, in an intimate and personal kinda way, “GET. OUT.”

I think you misspelled “REDRUM”.

Which means in a week or so, because we live in the deep uncharted interior of the continent.

Scatman Crothers is on his way right now bringing it on a Sno’-Cat. Keep an eye out for him will ya’?

… I know that the house has said to me and me alone, in an intimate and personal kinda way, “GET. OUT.”

One of the few areas where I’ve actually changed my life for the better is in (fairly regularly) reminding myself that inanimate object are not talking to me. Nor are they out to get me. It’s all physics.

I must be dead, because even though I knew Bhutto had been murdered, I looked at her pic on the cover of Parade, read the article, and said oh well.
It’s the opposite of Twain’s remark that the reports of his death had been exaggerated. In her case, the reports of her continued existence had been exaggerated.
I feel as if I’m turning into a zombie that accepts everything without critical thought, because I am so tired and overwhelmed.

My question is why Parade was doing BB coverage in the first place. Back when my family would get it, it was all celebrities and diets and recipes. Have they become more consistently “newsy” or was this piece an exception? If an exception, back to my original question.

16: Clearly our domestic supply of “hotties who haven’t recently been in prison, rehab or divorce court”–traditional Parade cover material–is running dangerously low.

My question is why Parade was doing BB coverage in the first place. Back when my family would get it, it was all celebrities and diets and recipes. Have they become more consistently “newsy” or was this piece an exception?

They’ve become inconsistently newsy, TC, sort of like morning TV — an “in step with” interview with an entertainer, a few human-interest side things, timely financial tips, the Marilyn vos Savant column, a coupla cartoons, and a range of feature stories — Oprah and Denzel, Bill O’Reilly watching out for you, someone’s recovery from depression, a list of the ten worst dictators, and so forth. Think Reader’s Digest meets Good Morning America.

So I wonder whether there aren’t a couple of Sunday-supplement- reading Americans out there this morning, most likely in the 70+ age bracket, who are hoping that that nice Bhutto woman can help save us from terrorists.

Parade is the home of Republican smear merchant Ed Klein. Anything they can to to drum up terror hysteria, such as running a cover story showing a now-dead BB blurbed as “America’s best hope against al-Qaeda?” is good for their editorial POV.

I am old enough to remember when there were two of these Sunday supplements — the other one was called “This Week.” (Plus some small fry, but the major Sunday papers all carried either Parade or TW.) For a while, at least, Parade had faint but observable lefty tendencies. The Wallechinsky brothers used to be regular contributors. And Dotson Rader. Of course, that was when lefty was in. I don’t pay much attention to it any more, but I get the impression that the editors try to make it smarter than it has to be.

Of course, the whole enterprise has to be very marginal these days, with the newspaper business continuing to go south. My wife asked why they didn’t pull the BB issue after she was killed. My assumption was that they couldn’t possibly afford to give the advertisers a refund.

And mds, you don’t look a day over 90, and no, I’m not just saying that.

Wait, that big ghostly head in my home really is two-way?

Anyway, though I’d love to ascribe this to fomenting despair by maliciously pulling a rug out from under people, er, retroactively, I’d more readily accept that they simply couldn’t be bothered, because who really gets their foreign affairs from Parade? Especially when that’s what “Get Fuzzy” is for.

For a minute I thought that Michael was actually answering the question “Who really gets a parade of foreign affairs,” but sadly, no.