Rambling Rhodes

Testing, Testing

Via Doug, at Bogus Gold, I took a test, which yielded odd results:

English Genius
You scored 86% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 93% Advanced, and 77% Expert!

Compared to users who took the test and are and in your age group:
100% had lower Beginner scores.
100% had lower Intermediate scores.
100% had lower Advanced scores.
100% had lower Expert scores.

First off: only 86% Beginner? My Mom would be rolling over in her grave if she knew that, provided she was dead, I mean. That last part, with all the 100% figures? I don't buy those results. It was an interesting test, though. Some head scratchers were in there.

That Good Old Objective Media

You gotta give Martha Stewart's PR people credit. If you can take a convicted insider trader and make her a bigger and more respected star after a five month prison stint, man, you're doing one hell of a job.

Tough Call

During the summer of 1998, when I worked as a reporter for the Winona Daily News, I was given a very sucky article assignment. It was sucky in that it involved an interview I would have gnawed off my left foot to get out of.

Two teenage girls had gotten into an accident while driving a pickup truck. They were driving to a campsite they had prepared for a weekend outing. The driver lost control of the truck, the truck rolled over, and the driver was killed. Well, the Daily News tried to do human interest stories in the event of a tragedy such as a teenage death, and it fell on me that weekend to write the story.

As if writing about a teenager's death wasn't hard enough, I also had to make a call to the girl's family. Now, I'm fine with people thinking I'm an asshole or a jerk; that's part of the magic of being Ryan Rhodes. But, I don't like thinking of myself as a ghoul. And, let me tell you, that day I felt about as ghoulish as you can get.

The thing is, though, it was a necessary ghoulishness. Like it or not, I wasn't going to get a complete article about the girl unless I spoke with her family. I couldn't find out who she really was and what her interests were unless I picked up that phone and spoke with her mom or dad. I knew all this. I hated it, but I knew it.

I stared at that phone for about an hour. I'd pick it up and start to dial, and then I'd put it down again. I couldn't think of a good introduction that wouldn't make me sound, and feel, like a completely insensitive ass.

When I did finally make the call, the girl's dad answered. I could tell there was a lot of funeral-related activity going on in the background; a lot of people in the house.

I honestly can't remember exactly how I introduced myself, or how I explained why I was calling. What I do remember was just how eager that father was to talk about his daughter. He told me about her for a good half hour; what she was like, what her interests were. . . how much he loved her. That sort of heartbreaking kind of thing.

I wrote the article, which admittedly wasn't one of my better pieces of writing, thanks to the pressures of daily deadlines, but it was decent. A week later, I even received a thank you card from the girl's family.

All of which brings me to this. Now, I was a grunt reporter at the time. I was 23 years old, making $6 an hour, for a daily newspaper that wasn't particularly huge.

So, given all that background, I have a few questions: if a 23-year-old grunt reporter can summon the cajones to make a difficult call to the family of a recently and tragically deceased teenage girl, why couldn't Nick Coleman, a "seasoned" reporter working for the biggest newspaper in Minnesota, make a call to the family of a 25-year-old soldier who died in the line of duty in Iraq? Why did Nick, instead, speak with an insurance and real estate agent whose son, Patrick, went to school with Day? Why did Nick, instead, speak with George Graff, a retired teacher and high school wrestling coach who knew Day's family back when the fallen soldier's sister, Kate, was a school cheerleader? Why did Nick, instead, speak with Lisa Nieland, 24, a production assistant in the factory (where another worker is in Iraq with the Guard). And, as long as I'm asking questions: WHAT factory? Nick just says "the factory," and the readers have no idea what the hell factory he's even talking about. Why did Nick, rather than trying to speak with the soldier's widow, opt instead to speak with a third worker watching the choppers, Pat Needham, 50? Why did Nick, rather than interview someone who might actually have been, you know, CLOSE with the fallen soldier, opt instead to simply quote from the priest presiding over the funeral?

Not that I expect any answers from Nick, mind you, but I just thought I'd ask.

Gee, it's almost as if Coleman is a terrible, lazy, or selective, reporter or something. Nahhhh, that can't be it.

I'm Moving To Lebanon

Because it apparently consists entirely of pretty hot women.

Holy smokes she's good looking. *growl*

Via.

Placing Blame

DISCLAIMER: I'm not an economist. The following post is based purely on my own observations and opinions. I fully admit that the information contained within this post could be wrong. Feel free to tear me a new butthole if you wish. It wouldn't be the first time.

There's plenty of items I could dismantle with this post, but it's this part that I most want to address:

The year after I graduated from college your presidency (W. Bush, of course) hailed in the worst economic downturn since Hoover.

This is something that bothers me whenever someone holds the economy forth as some sort of stinky fish that's the direct result of the Bush administration. Here's the deal: I don't blame Bush OR Clinton OR Reagan OR Hoover OR Freddy OR Jason OR aliens OR predators for the borderline recession that greeted us at the turn of the Millennium, and I think it's entirely stupid to place blame on any one administration for something as complex as economic stability. And, keep in mind, I was laid off in late 2001 pretty much as a direct result of the constricting economic woes of the time, so I should be more than willing to place blame on someone. . . ANYONE. So, here goes:

Back in 1998, in my Winona Daily News reporter days (WARNING: phony baloney street cred and folksy wisdom alert!), every time the stock market--NASDAQ in particular--did one of its 100+ point drops, I was tasked with exploring whether that particular drop was an indication of serious drops in the future or whether the said drop was just a "correction." Generally, the sources I interviewed chalked it up to a "correction" and, sure enough, in the next couple of weeks, the stock market would rebound, and everything was puppies and kittens again. Still, I couldn't help thinking that something wasn't quite right. The drops and rises were just so. . . big. And regular.

Also that summer, I was assigned an article that explored the Y2k "crises." If you don't remember the Y2k crises, let's just say, it meant a lot of jobs for a lot of techies. Hell, it was pretty much its own mini-industry. There are still soda machines here at IBM sporting stickers that say "Y2k compliant." SODA machineS, for crying out loud.

Come 1999, the stock market tech bubble started to deflate which, in retrospect, was hardly surprising. But, few people really grasp what the bubble burst really was, or what it meant. Hundreds, hell, maybe thousands, of Internet start-ups were largely behind the stock market boom of the late 90s. Those Internet start-ups were all vying for online advertising dollars which, apparently, nobody realized that there was a finite supply of online advertising dollars. Only so many companies were willing to pay for a banner ad for dressyourpetslikehumans.com.

The other thing about all those Internet start-ups was that they all basically bought new technology hardware. Nobody was digging through trash heaps and rebuilding an old Compaq to act as a Web server. No, everybody was buying new, and expensive, technology hardware. Companies like Sun Microsystems were up to their ears in orders.

And, again, this all was building up under the Clinton adminstration, pretty much without any real input from said administration, which was busy dealing with blowjob-gate. For the record here, I wanted everyone to just STOP with the witch hunt during blowjob-gate. I mean, jeez, who really freakin' cared? Anyway. . .

The year 2000 rolled around, and Y2k did not, in fact, result in accidental global nuking and computers coming to life to feast on human brains. What Y2k DID mean was that a whole lot of people were suddenly not necessary any more, and a very lucrative and important part of the economy was pretty much shut down. Good news, bad news.

Oh, and all those Internet start-ups? They discovered they couldn't make ends meet because there wasn't enough advertising dollars and/or interest in their sites. So, they continued to shut down as well, leaving companies like, say, Sun Microsystems, with all these orders (expensive orders) that no longer needed to be filled. Thus, people got laid off. A lot of people got laid off. A lot of speculation didn't pan out. It wasn't the first time rampant speculation laid an egg, and it probably won't be the last time.

Again, not Clinton's fault. . . not Bush's fault. Bush inherited a crumbling economy that was, by 2000, not even nearly finished crumbling yet. What should the Bush administration have done? Pumped millions of dollars into dressyourpetslikehumans.com? Hardly. That would have been stupid. Hell, for my birthday in 2000, my parents gave me $1,000, with the stipulation that I had to invest it in the stock market. I put the money in a savings account instead, because I didn't trust the market. It was too volatile. And I didn't know shit. Still don't.

Thing is, rampant speculation wasn't limited to Internet start-ups. Everyone was pumping the stock market like a $20 prostitute. Enron comes to mind here, as well as others. If the market hadn't collapsed under its own inflated weight, we may never have known about all the malfeasance going on at Enron, and Arthur Andersen and the like. But, the market did tank, and companies went belly up like fish in a freshly dynamited pond. You can't blame Bush for that. You can't blame Clinton for that. You can blame greed, I suppose.

So, you have an economy and stock market on the decline, with technology companies getting a big old splash of cold water in the face. In the midst of that economic seizure, 9/11 came around, an attack that sliced the aorta of America's world economic headquarters. What did the market drop when it opened up again days later? 700+ points or something like that? Unheard of. Not something you bounce back from overnight, or even over four years for that matter.

The Bush administration inherited some pretty freakin' impossible economic circumstances and, given those circumstances, I think it's more amazing than anything else that we're still economically viable, let alone competitive.

So, when I read that Bush hailed in the worst economic downturn since Hoover, I usually think: wow, that's a really stupid thing I just read there. Really, REALLY stupid. Like, Titanically stupid.

Then I go watch Strong Bad, and I laugh.

Nickel For Your Thoughts

As a hobbyist coin collector, I think this is pretty cool.

Sin Stacking

From today's Rochester Post-Bulletin (you need a username and password) we get this amazingly horrifying lead paragraph. Keep in mind, Winona is the town where I graduated from college:

WINONA -- Bail has been set at $20 million for a 22-year-old man accused of strangling his pregnant girlfriend to keep her from going to authorities about his alleged drug-dealing, then raping and strangling her 10-year-old daughter before setting their apartment on fire in mid-December....

The full story, free of charge, can be read here. Gawd.

Dark Knight. Heath Ledger. Batman. The Joker. Dark Knight. Heath Ledger. Batman. The Joker. Dark Knight. Heath Ledger. Batman. The Joker.

Liveblogging my last day in my 20s

9:00 a.m. -- Today, Feb. 28, 2005, marks my last day as a young man in his 20s. I'll be liveblogging this event as it unfolds, so be sure to check back regularly.

9:09 a.m. -- I shave my head because I'd be bald anyways. It's taken me until just about now to not care about that any more.

9:30 a.m. -- When I was 20 years old, I worked in the meat department of my hometown grocery store during the weekends. I made $5 an hour. I make a lot more than that now.

10 a.m. -- On my 21st birthday, I went bar-hopping around Winona, Minnesota. I got a birthday glass from Brothers Bar and Grill. I still have the glass. . . somewhere.

10:35 a.m. -- When I was 22, I had the longest relationship (one year) with a girl up until my current girlfriend. My 22nd was probably one of the most enjoyable summers of my college years. Her name was Jerusha, and I broke up with her the following summer, in a move I regretted on and off for a few years afterwards. I hope she's doing well and is insanely happy.

11:20 a.m. -- Also when I was 22, in December, I quit my job as a meat department worker at a Winona grocery store I was hired at the Winona Daily News at $5.50 an hour. I worked Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., writing obituaries, rewriting police and fire department reports, flowing stock market results into a Quark XPress file, and boiling down press releases. Once a month, I think, I also had to write out court rulings, which was a fascinating window into the lives of local citizens; I learned a lot about who got nailed for speeding, DUI, NSF checks and on and on and on. It was always great to find someone I knew in those reports, and then I'd call them and mercilessly taunt them. Good times. Good times. Except for the pay. That sucked.

1 p.m. -- I graduated from college at 23, following five years of higher eduction, referred to by me and my friends as my "Five Year Plan." I graduated with a mass communications/journalism major and a history minor. I have since been working in some capacity or another in print-related fields, what some people would refer to as my "phony baloney street cred," or, alternately, my "folksy wisdom."

1:22 p.m. -- If I get married in my 30s, it's my sincerest hope that my bride will decide to wear something sensible and fashionable. You know, something like this:

How was the wedding? Tramp-tacular!

2:10 p.m. -- I worked the summer after my graduation at the Winona Daily News as a full-fledged reporter, making a whopping $6 an hour. That was the summer of, like, three huge thunderstorms that absolutely destroyed areas of southeastern Minnesota. That meant grueling, long hours, follow-up stories and all sorts of other reporting that just about put me on the breaking point. After August, the woman I was covering for, who was on maternity leave, returned to the paper, so I was out of a job. I was then unemployed for four months, searching for journalism-related jobs. I spent many consecutive evenings sipping Bacardi and Coke while playing Caesar III. I also read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and 1984, as well as others I can't remember right now.

3 p.m. -- Come January of 1999, I finally landed a job at a weekly newspaper called The Stewartville Star. The owners smoked. I mean, they SMOKED. One cigarette after another after another. Which, you know, come ON people, this is a newspaper. Lots of flammable materials all over the place. At that job, I was responsible for EVERYTHING, from school board meetings, to city council meetings, to soft news features to photography. I did it all. I do miss the darkroom photo development hours. I enjoyed that. I still write a humor column for the Star, and I've won a first place award and a runner-up award for my work in that area. Didn't win anything this year though, dammit.

4:30 p.m. -- I'm really glad Million Dollar Baby won Best Picture. Totally deserved it.