Just Asking
On a light raining, 45-degree December late night, I ask:
Why is there a Wanda Sykes show? Or, for that matter, a Wanda Sykes?
Why would anyone plunk down their hard-earned cash, or even their easily-earned cash, for a Kenny Alphin album?
Does Garth Brooks think those staredown publicity mug shots of him give him an air of edginess? Yeah, sure, he's a real outlaw.
Not two years later, but from Day One I wanted to puke when I saw that Robert Plant was doing some recording with Allison Krauss. I knew what was coming. Any time someone from the rock field slums their way into the country music neighborhood, the bowdowns and hosannas just never stop. As if it is so wonderful that some washed-up rocker would want to humble himself by stepping on a country music stage.
...
Tell them how the weather was... -- Ernest Hemingway bryce_martin_1@Lycos.com
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Fine me, please
by Bryce Martin
Keith Bulluck of the Titans tosses the football into the stands each time he makes an interception and the play has ended. That is an automatic fine from the NFL.
Bulluck always boasts that he doesn't care, he's always going to do it anyway.
Of course, he is. It's to his advantage. He needs charity write-offs to help keep money from his salary that would otherwise go to Uncle Sam.
In fact, many of the so-called NFL "bad boys" have been using this ploy for years.
Player fines collected by the league have been used to support retired player programs, including the NFL Player Care Foundation and NFLPA Players Assistance Trust, disaster relief programs and and other charities.
The fined player chalks it up as a donation to charity. Thus, he gets his tax deduction that he was going to need to discharge in some form anyway.
It surely beats having to get up early and spend all day some Saturday in the off-season showing a bunch of eight-year-old campers how to run a slant pattern all in the name of some caring charity.
I keep forgetting my Hemingway tip:
"The weather it was fine." Isn't that a line from "Oh, Susanna" by Foster?
-30-
by Bryce Martin
Keith Bulluck of the Titans tosses the football into the stands each time he makes an interception and the play has ended. That is an automatic fine from the NFL.
Bulluck always boasts that he doesn't care, he's always going to do it anyway.
Of course, he is. It's to his advantage. He needs charity write-offs to help keep money from his salary that would otherwise go to Uncle Sam.
In fact, many of the so-called NFL "bad boys" have been using this ploy for years.
Player fines collected by the league have been used to support retired player programs, including the NFL Player Care Foundation and NFLPA Players Assistance Trust, disaster relief programs and and other charities.
The fined player chalks it up as a donation to charity. Thus, he gets his tax deduction that he was going to need to discharge in some form anyway.
It surely beats having to get up early and spend all day some Saturday in the off-season showing a bunch of eight-year-old campers how to run a slant pattern all in the name of some caring charity.
I keep forgetting my Hemingway tip:
"The weather it was fine." Isn't that a line from "Oh, Susanna" by Foster?
-30-
Tennessean newspaper needs to consult styleguide
by Bryce Martin
In a Tennessean news story ("Path cleared for Tennessee to execute 1980 Killer," December 1, 2009), reporter Kate Howard details some events that led to a man's murder conviction. The killer shot and killed three people while robbing a grocery store. One was a 12-year-old boy who was working the cash register at his father's store. Howard wrote, "The 12-year-old sold Cokes and snacks... ." So, are we to understand that a grocery store would sell nothing but Cokes when a multitude of soft drinks were on the market then as now. A small grocery store selling only Cokes would greatly hamper its sales possibilities. It's a journalism problem. I blame not Howard but the editors at the Tennessean, if they have any. Coke is a brand name for Coca-Cola. Coke is not a generic word for any soft drink. To spell Coke with a lower case "c" in printed form is incorrect, and in Coca-Cola's opinion, illegal. You still see it in newspapers even though the journalism industry has warned against it for years in its trade periodicals. The next worse thing is to do as Howard did, capitalize it but write it in a way that implies the same thing: That all soft drinks are Cokes, or cokes.
I guess that is the choice of soft drinks today in McNewsrooms.
by Bryce Martin
In a Tennessean news story ("Path cleared for Tennessee to execute 1980 Killer," December 1, 2009), reporter Kate Howard details some events that led to a man's murder conviction. The killer shot and killed three people while robbing a grocery store. One was a 12-year-old boy who was working the cash register at his father's store. Howard wrote, "The 12-year-old sold Cokes and snacks... ." So, are we to understand that a grocery store would sell nothing but Cokes when a multitude of soft drinks were on the market then as now. A small grocery store selling only Cokes would greatly hamper its sales possibilities. It's a journalism problem. I blame not Howard but the editors at the Tennessean, if they have any. Coke is a brand name for Coca-Cola. Coke is not a generic word for any soft drink. To spell Coke with a lower case "c" in printed form is incorrect, and in Coca-Cola's opinion, illegal. You still see it in newspapers even though the journalism industry has warned against it for years in its trade periodicals. The next worse thing is to do as Howard did, capitalize it but write it in a way that implies the same thing: That all soft drinks are Cokes, or cokes.
I guess that is the choice of soft drinks today in McNewsrooms.