Last Week’s Story about the teacher-student sex scandal in a Colorado school — the principal and vice principal were indicted for failure to report the case, as required since they’re “mandatory reporters” of child abuse under state law — is followed up this week by another that really applies to the whole mindset.
I’m taking a quick break from writing the stories for this week’s issue to tell you why I’m rejecting a story, even though it’s mind-boggling in its implication.
I have a little bit to say about a story this week, so let me start with that story — from the 26 November 2017 issue:
In my recent post about watching the Internet “grow up,” I noted True was a driving force in setting the “best practices” around email publishing — I pushed the first true Email Service Provider to add features I wanted, and one of those features was “double opt-in.”
You — Yes, You — Can “Do Something” about Mass Killings. A good friend of mine posted this yesterday, after he heard about the 49 murders at a “gay night club” in Orlando, Florida, overnight. The gunman was killed in a shoot-out with police.
Sometimes it’s fun to poke at obliviots — especially when they’re truly oblivious to their idiocy.
As of today, I’ve turned off Google’s “Adsense” service on this site.
This is True went online in the first half of 1994, so True has been in business longer than many big names in the Internet biz, including Google (1998). As a classic feature column, I received (and turned down) syndication offers from two different newspaper syndicates, including one of the biggest in the business, because I wanted full control of True’s publication rights — including its online presence. I’m not about to let Google control what I write about in this context!
The Two Lead Stories this week (the “asthma stories”) were by far the most-suggested stories by readers recently. I think every one of them just suggested one or the other, and they probably didn’t know about the other. The two stories, which happened about a week apart, and about 165 miles apart, are pretty amazing together. Let’s start with the two stories, in True’s 24 January 2016 issue:
Nick in Arizona recently re-subscribed after an absence. He wrote:
There Was a Protest Unsubscribe after I ran the plug (below) for Get Out of Hell Free cards in Friday’s edition.
I had to get something off my chest. I’ve been seething about this for awhile, but a story this week brought it to a head. You probably saw it: it was the talk of social media last week. So let’s start with that, from True’s 20 September 2015 issue:
Some Readers Seem to Want to top recent examples of “Stupid Reasons for Protest Unsubscribes”.
What Would You Include as significant milestones in the “history” of weird news?
Another politician, another hypocrite — this time, the Speaker of the House of Representatives in Missouri. Let’s start with the story, from the 17 May 2015 issue:
There have been complaints about advertising before, because they either bashed right-wing or left-wing politicians (and, because of what advertisers want to say, readers call me a “communist propagandist” or a “right-wing pukebag,” respectively).
I Have a Few Comments on Mike Straw’s story this week. Let’s start with the story, from the 18 January 2015 issue:
Two related stories that finish out this week’s issue may be a bit controversial, so I thought I would post them here to allow discussion among readers. They’re from the 7 December 2014 issue:
I Think Alexander Went Too Easy on the schools in a story this week. First, let’s start with the story, from True’s 23 February 2014 issue:
This week several readers sent a story suggestion, and it’s a pretty outrageous story: a school accused a 15-year-old student of “putting a hex” on a teacher, making him ill. The assistant principal brought the girl in for “aggressive interrogation” and then suspended her for 15 days. No, this wasn’t in Salem in the late 1600s, but rather “modern” Oklahoma. The link was to a page on ABC News, and it was the same link from each reader.
This weekend, while watching the “War on Christmas” fights going back and forth on Facebook, I decided to research a specific line that I remembered using as a tagline …sometime awhile back. I couldn’t remember when, so I looked for it — and was quite amused to find that it had been 10 years ago exactly.