Is it guns? Is it violent TV shows, movies, or video games? Is it crazy America?
Death
Honorary Unsubscribe: Yueyue
I don’t often copy Honorary Unsubscribe write-ups to the True site: there’s an archive for those. But I suspect readers are going to want to talk about this one, from True’s 23 October 2011 issue:
Younger Readers
There were very few comments about a tag that Jennifer put on one of her stories, about two people listening to music so loud that they couldn’t hear trains coming. There’s a real and significant reason I publish such stories, but not everyone grasps that.
Here’s the story, from True’s 6 February 2011 issue:
Psychic Pay
I write True to make a living, yes, and it’s gratifying that enough people support the publication to make that happen. But there’s another reason, too: I want to change the world just a little bit, on both a micro and a macro scale.
Cathy in Florida
There were two accidentally related emails in my morning download that I’d like to tell you about. To truly appreciate what happened, though, there’s a bit of backstory. In September 2007, I ran the following reader letter in True.
Family Feud
Sometimes there’s a story that I “have” to publish, even though I know it just won’t make it past the spam filters, so I “can’t” put it in the email newsletter. And see below for an update.
Lessons from a Strange Death
Odd deaths are a staple story type in True, sometimes as a cautionary tale about what not to do, and sometimes as a way to point out how horribly we can treat others. This is one such case, with an update.
Tough Weekend
This week I’ve been dragging after a tough weekend. “Just” two ambulance calls, but they were doozies. I was just starting to make a late breakfast Saturday morning when we got a call for a rollover just 3 miles down the road.
Bear Country Update
An update on the Bear Story from a couple of weeks ago, about the Colorado woman and the bear.
Bear Country
A few comments about this week’s lead story, about the encounter between a bear and a Colorado woman. If the location sounds somehow familiar, it’s because that’s where I live.
In the Line of Duty
The county I’m in is pretty small, population-wise: about 4,200 people. (Geography-wise, it’s medium for the west: about 550 square miles.) As you might guess, there’s not much shopping in my county, so for groceries we pop into Montrose, which is a town of about 16,000, and is only 20 minutes away. (Montrose County has a population of around 34,000 in 2,240 square miles.) So we know the town pretty well.
Another April, Another Mass Shooting
There was another mass shooting today, a nut with a gun at an immigration office in New York, with at least a dozen killed. Here’s what I want to know: why do these things so often happen in April?
Changes to the Honorary Unsubscribe
Now and then, Premium subscribers — the paying customers which, I have said time and again, make True possible — get a little miffed that they get the Honorary Unsubscribe after it’s published in the free edition. Frankly, shouldn’t they get it either exclusively, or at the very least first?
Justifiable(?) Homicide
There was a horrendous story in last week’s issue about a guy who stabbed an intruder to death. Several readers took me to task for my tagline on the story, so I’m putting it here as a place for discussion.
Weird News Video #26 — Black Friday
Episode #26: “Black Friday”, from True’s 30 November 2008 issue.
Weird News Video #17 — Politically Incorrect
Episode #17: “Politically Incorrect”, from True’s 28 September 2008 issue.
Men and Balloons
What is it with men who want to fly under balloons? I don’t mean hot air balloons, I mean toy balloons. This one’s a priest — he just wanted to get closer to God, I guess. From True’s 27 April 2008 edition:
Keeping the Balance Balanced
Yes, True is sometimes a touch raw. Usually it works out fine — it’s balanced well between tragedy (like a school committing a grievous Zero-Tolerance punishment on a truly innocent kid) and comedy. But now and then, after I’ve written an issue, something comes up that tilts the balance, and the result is awkwardly off-kilter.
That’s Not Funny!
Now and then a reader will write to say they’re outraged by a story — that it’s “not humorous.”
Dick Ebersol’s Plane Crash
You may have heard about the plane crash last weekend (November 28, 2004) in Montrose, Colorado, mainly because a “celebrity” was aboard (NBC Sports head Dick Ebersol; his wife is actress Susan Saint James).