I “had to” look up more details on a story. While “I Hate This Story” does reflect my feelings, I do think it’s important to occasionally bring to light how horrible people can be, even to their own children, because we can and should learn from them.
Editorial
Bill Post for H.U.?
No, a junk food creator didn’t get the nod.
Weird Coincidences
It’s coming up on True’s 30th anniversary, so there are bound to be some coincidences among story subjects. Get a load of this one from this week’s issue:
Front Page News
A fairly bizarre news story from the county seat of my recently-former Colorado home not only caught my eye, but quickly spread to national, and now international, headlines.
Florida Book Censorship
There needed to be a place to comment on, and get more info on, a truly moronic Florida story from this week’s issue. This is the place.
Damned If You Do
Discussion about the small-town Missouri school teacher who was discovered to have an account on OnlyFans.
Two Court Orders
The first two stories this week have brief summaries of two different court orders: you might utter a distressed “You can’t be serious!” on one. The other could be described with the same words, but with an opposite emotion.
The Continuing Decline in News Reporting
I Really Rolled My Eyes at the poor reporting in the source for a story in this week’s issue. Let’s start with my version of the story:
Who Knows Religion Best?
This post was triggered by a story this week by True contributor Alexander Cohen, who properly wrote the slug (story title) in the form of a question:
Humbled by the H.U.?
This is True’s Honorary Unsubscribe has long been a reader favorite. Sometimes it’s hard to not compare yourself to them.
Not Political, Not Partisan
Last Week’s Issue included a story from Florida — indeed one that most readers would “expect” to be based in Florida. Well, one reader responded with an age-old charge: it was (oh no!) political! He actually meant partisan — but it was neither. Let’s start with the story:
Texas Zero Tolerance
I Still Get So Angry at Zero Tolerance stories! Let’s start with the story that made me angry this week:
“He’s a F—–g Weenie”
I often wonder what happened in old stories, so I looked for the resolution of one was published two years ago last week. I’m a pretty decent researcher, but all I could find is the original news stories, and occasionally a comment about the story. So I dug deeper.
The Slapping Judge
You’ve heard of a “hanging judge”? I prefer a slapping judge, like this one. Let’s start with the story, then a follow-up story of a Florida finger-flipper:
Chuck Shepherd: News of the Weird
Chuck Shepherd started “News of the Weird” as a newspaper column in 1988, and was picked up by the Universal Press Syndicate in 1989. Similarly, a year after I started I was offered a contract by their biggest competitor, Creators Syndicate, almost certainly as way to compete with the very popular NotW, but I turned it down.
My Interview with an AI Chatbot about… Thinking
What happens when you talk to an artificial intelligence language model about the value of something it can’t actually do? Thinking, I mean.
093: The Best Books were Never Written
In This Episode: I still feel his pain, and I will until I die. But strangely, feeling that pain led me to resolve, not fear. That taught me that my pain could be a good teacher.
You Won’t Believe Your Eyes
Or maybe the second word in the title should be “Shouldn’t”!
Authors for Libraries
The non-profit “Fight for the Future” — formed in 2012 to lead the successful fight against the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) and the “PROTECT IP Act” (PIPA) — has turned to protecting libraries from giant publishers who are trying to take away the right to loan books, particularly now that most books are published as ebooks.