by Kerry Dougherty
Warning: I’m a tad grouchy today. You see, I’m a hyperactive gym rat who hasn’t worked out since last Tuesday and has been slowed down by surgery. That happened Wednesday, by the way, when a skilled orthopedic surgeon sawed off part of my leg.
In other words, I’ve had way too much time to brood.
So, I’m starting the week with a litany of irritants that have totally ticked me off.
Number one: I’m sick of feminists protesting that Margot Robbie was cheated out of an Oscar while her male Barbie co-star Ryan Gosling got one.
How many of these same women protested when Riley Gaines was cheated out of her place on a podium by a man, Lia Thomas?
If that’s you, just shut up. No one wants to hear from you.
Plus, I actually watched Barbie on HBO Saturday night.
That may be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. The absolute worst. Worse even than Oppenheimer which was a total yawn, although many people pretend they liked it because it’s about a smart guy and lasted three hours. They think raving about this bore makes them appear intelligent.
It doesn’t.
I usually don’t say much about Donald Trump, but I am furious about this $83 million jury defamation verdict against him. Who in the world waits to come forward with allegations of rape 20 years old and only after the guy is running for office.
Besides Christine Blasy Ford, that is.
She was a disturbed woman who tried to wreck the life of a successful man — Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh — with a remarkably similar cockamamie marinated memory about an assault that never took place.
This latest apparent fabulist should not start planning to spend that money. If there is any justice left in this country, she’ll never see a penny. Surely there’s someone in the American court system who can put this right and send her back home to snuggle her cat, Vagina, and leave Trump alone.
Next, let’s talk about the sorry state of newspapers.
Most of you know I almost never read The Virginian-Pilot anymore. The reporting is shallow and the editorials sound as if they’re written by a college sophomore who’s just discovered Marxism.
But yesterday I was so bored, I Piloted myself.
As a result, I saw an indignant, imbecilic editorial that accused our governor of “buffoonery” for supporting Texas in its quest to protect the American people from the ongoing invasion on our Southern border.
Standing with Texas isn’t buffoonery. It’s the right thing to do. Long overdue.
Fixing the border is not the job of Republicans or the House of Representatives, even though those are the Democratic talking points right now.
It’s the job of the executive to enforce the immigration laws on the books and to reinstate the ones that were working before he took office and stupidly announced to the world that America was no longer a sovereign nation.
The Senate wants to continue to allow thousands of illegals to cross our border every single damn day? That’s not a negotiating point; that’s a surrender. And it’s not sustainable. The world is full of poor, desperate people living in crappy countries who want to come to the U.S.
Let them apply to come into the country legally and wait their turns. We have every right to say NO MORE. And many Americans are saying that and voting on that issue this November.
I’m sorry to be critical of news reporting in this once-readable paper, too, but Sunday’s front-page story on the driver who commandeered a car off the 14th Street pier is a prime example of why skilled editors are needed. When the paper offered buyouts to every employee who’d worked for the Pilot for 25 years or more it demonstrated — again — that the newspaper knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
First, this sort of tragedy is what we once would have called a really important, compelling story. A car seems to intentionally drive off a Virginia Beach pier, while apparently braking a couple of times, and someone has the wherewithal to actually film it.
So, what does this once-good newspaper do? It shoots the piece through with the boring gun. Puts it below the fold and sticks police jargon in the headline: “Vehicle drives off Virginia Beach pier”
“Vehicle drives off Virginia Beach pier”
VEHICLE? Seriously?
“Vehicle” is a terrible, colorless, bland, useless word. This was a car. A car drove off the pier.
Lordy, are the editors trying to drive readers away from the story?
The video of the car driving off the pier is all over social media. Looks like the paper initially linked to it online and then got cold feet. Why? The purpose of an online presence is to give subscribers a multi-media selection of sources.
I want you to see it. Here, take a gander:
This footage from Virginia Beach is crazy.
A car crashed through the end of the pier. pic.twitter.com/jGabBB8T34
— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) January 28, 2024
According to the thin reporting on this story, the reporters don’t know how long the pier is and didn’t bother to find out, so they reported that “several online references” claimed it’s 1,000 feet.
Back in the day, a crusty old editor with a bottle of whiskey in his file cabinet would have ordered the reporter to go out there, with a tape measure if necessary, to get what we used to call “facts.”
Geezus.
Then the writers lapsed back into jargon saying the police hadn’t recovered a body and presumed there’s a “deceased person” inside the submerged car.
DECEASED PERSON? Is that anything like a dead body? A corpse? A drowned driver?
Oh, and then the newspaper tells us — with no apparent curiosity — that officials said divers were not sent down to the car.
WHAT?
Every time a tractor trailer goes off the Chesapeake Bay-Bridge Tunnel, divers are in the water almost immediately. Why not in this case?
A grizzled copy editor — even one reeking of whiskey — would have told the reporters to ask the cops why no divers were sent. There must have been a reason — perhaps a good one- – but it seems they took what the police spoon fed them and put it in print.
Finally, a police spokesman who’s mastered the art of saying very little, is quoted claiming that the cops are “trying to collect the right assets” to recover the vehicle.
At the risk of offending those of you who never cuss, what the hell does THAT mean? What assets? Money? Equipment? Skilled salvage personnel?
When will they have these mysterious assets?
We used to call those follow-up questions.
And they wonder why no one reads newspapers any longer.
Republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed and Unedited.
