Random Thoughts XII - Floccinaucinihilipilification
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Gori the Grey
The Poster
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I've created a thread. Go add it to the thread.I DID IT!!!
K_N_U_C_K_L_E_D_U_S_T_E_R_S
Sometime last week I ran into an ad (an actual placard on a sidewalk) by some local Evangelical Christian weirdo group that is offering places in an after-school club for children called ‘young conquistadors’ in which they'd develop healthy Christian values© and community life.
I have a mixed reaction between
and 
.
I have a mixed reaction between
and .
Lexicus
Deity
@Sommerswerd , the canon section on the Harry Potter Lexicon sums up my attitude toward the Harry Potter canon nicely, if you remember our Harry Potter chats from a little while back.
(To be clear, I don't think the films are wonderful at all - and Rowling's endorsement of them can be easily explained)
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So in other words, a hate group in the making?Sometime last week I ran into an ad (an actual placard on a sidewalk) by some local Evangelical Christian weirdo group that is offering places in an after-school club for children called ‘young conquistadors’ in which they'd develop healthy Christian values© and community life.
I have a mixed reaction between
The movies cut some material that should have been left in or filmed instead of the flashy CGI stuff that was added for basically no reason that mattered. I suspect that's why it took me numerous repeat viewings of the movies to even start to get interested in investigating the novels - so much was omitted that would have explained the plotlines and the characters in a more logical way.
Anyway, there's a dedicated Harry Potter thread in A&E.
Nostalgia for some of us.
The Last of the Afternoon Newspapers
By Peter Funt
Tucked in the southwest corner of Montana, the city of Livingston claims modest fame as the part-time home of veteran journalist Tom Brokaw and as a setting for the TV Western “Yellowstone.” It also has an unintended distinction in the newspaper business. The Livingston Enterprise and its sister paper, the Miles City Star, appear to be the last remaining U.S. dailies printed after lunch and delivered before dinner. Afternoon production, once dominant in newspaper publishing, is near extinction.
As recently as 40 years ago afternoon papers outnumbered morning publications by almost 4 to 1 in the U.S. By 2000 the number of morning papers had surpassed the afternoon total, though there were still more than 600 of the latter. These have since disappeared so quickly it’s almost as if a comet struck the industry— sometime in the afternoon. When I queried trade magazine Editor & Publisher, its associate publisher, Robin Blinder, emailed, “We’re not aware of any remaining afternoon dailies in print.”
Well, maybe it’s easy to overlook the Enterprise, with its 2,500 circulation, and the Star, which distributes 1,800 copies. Indeed, considering the modern media landscape, it is hard to fathom why any publisher would cling to a 2:30 p.m. press time. So I put in a call to John Sullivan, whose Yellowstone Newspapers owns both dailies. “Here in Montana, it would be very difficult to hire staff to work at night and almost impossible to find carriers to deliver the papers before dawn when it’s 20 below,” he said. “Most important, our readers like getting an afternoon paper, and if it’s late they’re not shy about letting us know.” Mr. Sullivan says his two dailies are losing money. “Business is precarious at the moment,” he concedes, “but I see no reason to switch to mornings.” Such a move saved many papers, such as the Denver Post and the New York Post, which years ago gave up trying to battle evening traffic for distribution and evening television as competition.
If there are other dailies printed in the afternoon, I couldn’t locate them. What I did find was nostalgia. In his recent book, “Chasing History,” Carl Bernstein, who was born in 1944, writes about using a red wagon at age 12 to deliver the Washington Star, and four years later landing a copy-boy job at the paper, where he learned the rhythm of afternoon newspapering—a type of work that tested journalists’ adrenaline flow like nothing else. “If something big happens we hold our press run even later,” Justin Post, the Enterprise’s managing
They’ve been closing for decades. Only two, in Montana, are left. editor, told me. “It gets pretty exciting. Subscribers like reading today’s news today.” Of the 13 carriers who home-deliver the Enterprise, three are children. One of them, a high-school freshman named Aden, delivers 60 papers after school, for which he earns about $7 a day plus tips. He and Mr. Post are the last of a dying breed. A recent article in the Enterprise began, “Students from the Sleeping Giant Middle School in Livingston spent Thursday at area businesses learning about potential careers.” As news, the story wasn’t much, but the fact that it reached doorsteps by Thursday evening was notable.
Regrettably, there was nothing in the report about potential careers at an afternoon newspaper.
Mr. Funt is author of “Self-Amused: A Tell-Some Memoir.”
The Last of the Afternoon Newspapers
By Peter Funt
Tucked in the southwest corner of Montana, the city of Livingston claims modest fame as the part-time home of veteran journalist Tom Brokaw and as a setting for the TV Western “Yellowstone.” It also has an unintended distinction in the newspaper business. The Livingston Enterprise and its sister paper, the Miles City Star, appear to be the last remaining U.S. dailies printed after lunch and delivered before dinner. Afternoon production, once dominant in newspaper publishing, is near extinction.
As recently as 40 years ago afternoon papers outnumbered morning publications by almost 4 to 1 in the U.S. By 2000 the number of morning papers had surpassed the afternoon total, though there were still more than 600 of the latter. These have since disappeared so quickly it’s almost as if a comet struck the industry— sometime in the afternoon. When I queried trade magazine Editor & Publisher, its associate publisher, Robin Blinder, emailed, “We’re not aware of any remaining afternoon dailies in print.”
Well, maybe it’s easy to overlook the Enterprise, with its 2,500 circulation, and the Star, which distributes 1,800 copies. Indeed, considering the modern media landscape, it is hard to fathom why any publisher would cling to a 2:30 p.m. press time. So I put in a call to John Sullivan, whose Yellowstone Newspapers owns both dailies. “Here in Montana, it would be very difficult to hire staff to work at night and almost impossible to find carriers to deliver the papers before dawn when it’s 20 below,” he said. “Most important, our readers like getting an afternoon paper, and if it’s late they’re not shy about letting us know.” Mr. Sullivan says his two dailies are losing money. “Business is precarious at the moment,” he concedes, “but I see no reason to switch to mornings.” Such a move saved many papers, such as the Denver Post and the New York Post, which years ago gave up trying to battle evening traffic for distribution and evening television as competition.
If there are other dailies printed in the afternoon, I couldn’t locate them. What I did find was nostalgia. In his recent book, “Chasing History,” Carl Bernstein, who was born in 1944, writes about using a red wagon at age 12 to deliver the Washington Star, and four years later landing a copy-boy job at the paper, where he learned the rhythm of afternoon newspapering—a type of work that tested journalists’ adrenaline flow like nothing else. “If something big happens we hold our press run even later,” Justin Post, the Enterprise’s managing
They’ve been closing for decades. Only two, in Montana, are left. editor, told me. “It gets pretty exciting. Subscribers like reading today’s news today.” Of the 13 carriers who home-deliver the Enterprise, three are children. One of them, a high-school freshman named Aden, delivers 60 papers after school, for which he earns about $7 a day plus tips. He and Mr. Post are the last of a dying breed. A recent article in the Enterprise began, “Students from the Sleeping Giant Middle School in Livingston spent Thursday at area businesses learning about potential careers.” As news, the story wasn’t much, but the fact that it reached doorsteps by Thursday evening was notable.
Regrettably, there was nothing in the report about potential careers at an afternoon newspaper.
Mr. Funt is author of “Self-Amused: A Tell-Some Memoir.”
Back in the '70s it was one of the kids up the street who was our paper boy. He was so reliable and punctual, you could almost set your watch by him (to within about 3-5 minutes). We just expected that at x number of minutes past 4 pm, we'd hear the mailbox lid open and close, and the paper would be there. By the time we went out to get it, he was already 2-3 houses down. Of course that was with afternoon delivery. Morning deliveries put a lot of kids out of a part-time job, precisely because nobody in their right mind would get up hours before sunrise, in -20C or colder, to deliver papers. Instead, they switched to adult carriers who could drive.
I had a friend in Calgary who delivered papers on a motor route. But in her case it was the Financial Post, and her route was mainly in the wealthier areas of the city (lots of rich filthy people, from politicians to oil/gas company executives, with swanky mansions).
I was staying with her one weekend near Christmas, and she asked if I'd like to go along, warning me that it would be after midnight and we wouldn't be done until dawn. I figured okay, why not.
She had to pick the papers up at a local gas station, and then get them into their plastic wrappers (can't just leave them in the mailbox or on the porch in case they got wet, so they were put into wrappers). She asked me to do that as we went along, so as I got a tour of the mansions and gated communities, I just kept stuffing newspapers into wrappers and handing them off to her when asked.
There was one particular place that she said she wanted me to come and see, and answer a question. Turns out the place was inspired by Greek architecture and had columns along the front. She'd become interested in Greek things from watching Xena: Warrior Princess (which I know has basically NO historical accuracy), and said, "Since you took that history course at college and said they talked about the columns, I want you to look at the columns here and tell me what kind they are."
So I got out of the car... and as I was looking up and around in the just-barely dawn light, we realized that there was someone up already... the lady of the house was in the foyer, noticeably wondering WTH was going on outside, why were there people in the yard looking at stuff? We figured we'd best leave NOW, before she got the idea we were casing the place or planning to break in, rather than just delivering the paper.
The temperature that night was somewhere in the vicinity of -20C or a few degrees colder, thankfully with no wind chill that mattered. It was cold enough spending hours in a car where the door was opening and closing every few minutes. That route would have been impossible on foot, no matter what time of day.
Zkribbler
Deity
Ring around the tp = Doric. Simple curly cues = Ionian; Crazy curly-cues = Corinthian. 
Except somehow this house managed to be somewhere inbetween Ionian and Corinthian. Don't ask me how.
It definitely wasn't Doric.Speaking of Doric columns... the prof told us to mind our spelling on exams. He said he had students in the past who either misheard him during the lecture or hadn't paid attention to the textbook and other reading, and in the essay portion of the exam, they would write about the "Dork" columns.
Corinthian is the best
Due to decadent φlamboyance.
But Ionian is more refined and classic.
Possibly? I feel tempted to pretend to have a child just to be shown around.
Grendeldef
Trancerelic & coffeeholic
You could also borrow or rent a child/children. It's a wonderful concept as they usually come willingly, behave until they're tired and the nominal parents are happy to take'em back even when you've used all the fun hours before bedtime.
Eeeeh, better not, because renting a child is what you do here when you want to go begging. It's what happens when you're down to the 4th or even 5th generation of people who don't work for a living –and I'm not talking about the oligarchy– nor do they do anything else. 
Grendeldef
Trancerelic & coffeeholic
No need to escalate that far - get them in the morning & return in the evening. You'll be surprised how many are willing to depart with their kids for a day as it makes possible for them to do all sorts of domestic tasks meanwhile.
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Hmmm. I've been thinking about the logistics and I don't like getting up early in the mornings so I could arrange to pick one tot up from school nearby and then walk him to the young conquistadors. At any rate the parents would thank me for exercising the juvenile impetus out of the lad.
Grendeldef
Trancerelic & coffeeholic
Sounds like a plan. I'll be expecting to read more of your endeavours in the raves thread later. As I've said earlier, too, kids are generally lovely. Especially others' kids with which you'll mostly interact when they're on their best behaviour.
Terxpahseyton
Nobody
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Where is the real world? On the stage? Or behind the curtain? What is real? What is what? What is anything... but dreams
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You do know I'm a teacher, don't you?
These comments made me to get into nostalgia river...
I was a teacher myself when was ~13 yrs old (probably around 2002 period). Did correct some biology and math tests for younger classes (sometimes even if wrong, answers made sense to my mind... Like <<"Homo Sapiens" is when there is big pain>> (local word game where Sāpe means pain. Years later still remember as it turned out to be qoute of lifetime). And was semi-teaching fresh geography teacher before she got confidence into her job. Just to be clear - at that time my IQ was 2 times higher
I was a teacher myself when was ~13 yrs old (probably around 2002 period). Did correct some biology and math tests for younger classes (sometimes even if wrong, answers made sense to my mind... Like <<"Homo Sapiens" is when there is big pain>> (local word game where Sāpe means pain. Years later still remember as it turned out to be qoute of lifetime). And was semi-teaching fresh geography teacher before she got confidence into her job. Just to be clear - at that time my IQ was 2 times higher
EgonSpengler
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I cannot explain why I got myself another cup of coffee just now. If I drink much more, I may start vibrating at another frequency and shift into an alternate dimension. I hear those are all the rage these days.
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