Sometimes one aside begets another
So I decided to go for the Guinness record on “asides in one column”
In my previous article, I cheered the fact three of my favorite politicians (Ron DeSantis, Ron Johnson and Rand Paul - our three “R” Republican Covid rock stars) won their races.
At one point, that article was running extremely long because I kept adding politically-incorrect and off-topic asides. Some of these asides were a tad silly … but they made me laugh, which is probably good for my mental health. Some, I thought, were fairly deep and might have accidentally made a few profound points about our “passing scene.”
As one aside quickly beget many other asides, as an experiment I decided that instead of deleting all my sentences that ran off on tangents, I’d go ahead and include them. Not just include them … embrace them, hug them and give them the love they’ve probably never received.
You’ve probably heard of the “re-purposed” drug (like ivermectin). Well, this is a re-purposed column. All the sentences I previously deleted did not end up on the cutting room floor. I saved them … so they can actually be re-purposed into a stand-alone column, which I now dub, “Analysis by Aside.”
The record is 24 ….
I actually looked it up. According to The Guinness Book of World Records, the record for number of asides in one political analysis article (24) was set by a reporter with the Baltimore Sun back in the early ‘90s.
The story ostensibly dealt with Bill Clinton’s ability to capture the all-important Soccer Mom voting block, but the author ended up babbling about Global Warming, the small number of black cast members on “SNL” and how Madonna was a transformational figure in the world.
It was impressive analysis, but I thought I could beat his record, something that might make my kids proud. For example, in the next paragraph, I use chicken nuggets as an analogy to describe our sorry mainstream press. (Author’s note: I will now start to number my asides for the officials at Guinness who are reading this).
(2) I do realize most people are busy and prefer their news and analysis in McNugget-sized bites. As other analysts have noted, longer thought pieces do NOT sell in Peoria.
(3) This stated, The Lancet has yet to publish a study confirming the above …. so we can’t say this is “settled science.” Still, I’m going to go ahead and state this as scientific fact: We all like our McNuggets. (Hold this aside; I’ll come back to it).
I was taken aback by this real-life exchange …
(4) At a cookout before Troy University’s fist basketball game the other night, I was fixing my hot dog and hamburger and, to make small talk, observed: “Everyone likes hot dogs.” Well, one young college student next to me replied that he did not like hot dogs. I must admit, I was taken aback.
“Ah, do you like chicken nuggets?” (I asked this question because my kids were also standing in line next to me and that’s about all they eat, although they did eat hot dogs on this night.)
“No, I don’t like them either,” he replied.
So I immediately replied:
“What are you? Some kind of communist?”
Actually, I didn’t say this; I just thought it. Instead, I think I just said, “All right … Go Trojans!”
(5) But what I’m wondering at this moment is can you even call someone a communist these days? Even if the person happens to be a communist. Would calling some communist a communist be considered harmful hate speech, something that could get you fired … or kicked out of school?
(6) And who actually gets to decide what is harmful hate speech that threatens members of some community? Heck, I know the answer. Facebook gets to decide! The medical associations get to decide! The college administrators get to decide!
(7) Maybe in our New Normal calling someone a communist would be considered a compliment. When everyone started getting their stimulus payments, I opined that “we’re all socialists now.” We’ll probably all be communists soon enough as well.
When we’ve reached this point and you call someone a communist in the hot dog line at a basketball game, this person will just just say, “Si. Thank you my good comrade” … as he eats whatever he does eat … which is obviously something (see aside No. 11).
(8) As the parents of 6- and 11-year-old children, I don’t know how my wife and I could have gotten by if someone hadn’t invented the chicken nugget. If it weren’t for the chicken nugget (and macaroni and cheese), my kids might be facing some kind of sustenance challenge today.
(9) … As an aside to an aside … once you start going down the Aside Path, you’re going to end up in Tanzania, but it’s the journey not the destination that’s important so we should all just enjoy our asides …
(10) I’m sure many readers will agree with me that today’s generation of kids don’t eat the same foods many of us ate growing up. My mother, who was a “stay-at-home” mom, fed myself, two brothers and my father a “meat-and-three” at least five times a week, meals we all ate together at the family table.
(11) And, for some reason, kids back then weren’t as heavy as kids today. I think the family meal eating habits began to change about the time Anthony Fauci became director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in 1984. Ever since, public health has gotten steadily worse. Certainly obesity has become the rare “health crisis” that’s actually legit.
(12) So I think “mothers having to work” (to provide extra income to deal with real inflation) might actually tie into our obesity health crisis.
(13) I also note that the man who is supposed to be in charge of America’s “public health” has really done nothing to improve public health. Nor has he done anything to highlight the real and significant health issues of childhood (and adult) obesity.
(14) For what it’s worth, obesity along with advanced age, were the real killers for most people who died from (or with) Covid … But all of this would be an aside.
A world of McNugget news and “news shrinkflation” …
(15) The McNugget-sized news story was actually the founding idea behind USA Today. The goal of publisher Al Neuharth was that this new newspaper would publish numerous short, easy-to-digest articles … with a splash of color. (The sports articles in the red section, the lifestyle pieces in purple and the straight news in blue).
(15) Short articles or not, USA Today, like all other mainstream news media, eventually jumped the shark.
(16) Here I could offer a plethora of “jump-the-shark” asides and even tell readers who don’t know where this reference originated (ah, I added a clue above) … but even the King of Asides knows there’s such a thing as too many asides.
(17) Today in the USA, a newspaper that used to be 64 pages is about 24 pages - something you’d know yourself … if you could still find a newsstand that sells the newspaper, which you probably can’t.
And the paper itself has shrunk from from 20 inches tall to maybe 14 inches. The width of the pages has gotten skinnier too. That is, “shrinkflation” (which is the real “tell” about real inflation) has even hit newspapers … Big time. So we still get the short stories, but we also get a lot fewer of them.
(18) Since we have far fewer newspapers today, we also have far fewer journalists who work at these newspapers. In fact, the number of journalists working at newspapers has declined from 75,000 to 31,000 in a period of about 16 years.
(19) The factoid above shows that reporters can occasionally report interesting and important information. What this reporter probably doesn’t understand is why so many newspapers have gone under or why the number of his colleagues has declined by 59 percent.
(20) This is explained by the fact so many Americans no longer trust the journalists at these newspapers. And also because an easy “workaround” to deal with real inflation is to cancel one’s newspaper subscription. Or, if you are a business, cancel or cut back on your advertising.
But the journalists, until recently, said there was no real inflation and they still believe they print only the truth and that only ‘dopes’ who don’t get their newspapers traffic in disinformation.
(21) Prediction: In five years, there will be only 15,00 journalists working at newspapers in America, and all of these newspapers will be entirely subsidized by “Excellence in Journalism” grants funded by philanthropists such as Bill Gates. (Mini-Aside or “tease:” This is the topic of one of my next stories).
Bye bye Troy, Alabama movie theater. We’ll miss you.
(22) Memo to self: Write a future story on the “Last Paper Boy.” Who was this person and when did he toss the last paper from his bicycle? Maybe I can sell the film rights to my story and someone will make this into a movie … that is, if we have not already had “The Last Picture Show.”
(23) Have I mention that my county of 35,000 - in a college town no less - no longer even has a movie theater? The government ordered it closed in Covid and it never re-opened. Good trivia question for local residents: What was the last picture show in Troy, Alabama? FWIW, this is the first time in 100 years Troy, Alabama hasn’t had a movie theater.
This means to take your sweetie to “dinner and a show,” you now have to drive 48 miles to Montgomery (100 miles round-trip).
(24) How much more will that date night cost in extra gas alone? In the coming years and decades, how many people will end up having car accidents on those trips? Still, our rulers closed our movie theater to protect everyone’s safety.
(25) “Those jobs are going, boy, and they ain’t coming back … to my home town …”
Let the record show that I just set the all-time record for asides in one political article with a lyric from a Bruce Springsteen song.
I am now the Boss of the Aside.
Some "Bonus Asides" I left out ...
Of the more than 300 Democrats who have served in Congress since March 2020, I can say with confidence that zero have “represented” my views on this government response. Like most of my readers, I believe that EVERY Covid policy was not only wrong, but wrong with deadly consequences.
From the lockdowns to the masks to the vaccines, our official public health response has dramatically worsened public health. And this doesn’t include the economic devastation or the eradication of personal liberties supposedly protected by our Constitution. Anyway, 0 out of 300 is very bad.
But the mainstream press is even worse. Per my research, there are approximately 40,000 mainstream journalists who work full time in this profession in America (newspapers account for 31,000 of these journalists).. Of these 40,000 journalists and editors, I am aware of … zero … who have written one significant story that questions the non-sensical and tragic policies of our government.
So 0 out of 40,000 is even more awful. Indeed, I defy statisticians to find another group where all 40,000 members think exactly the same.
In the future, when you read some article that mentions “groupthink” or “pack journalism,” please remember the ratios I provided above. The groupthink is not 95.3 percent, it’s 100 percent. The percent of journalists or Democratic politicians who think like me is not 4.7 percent, it’s 0 percent.
Three more asides that DID end up on the cutting room floor ...
God bless the few people who still occasionally read a long article. This article not included, some complex topics can’t be developed or explained in 750 words or presented in a 75-second news segment on your local news.
... As all writers know, it’s much more difficult to “write short” than long. So, also, God Bless those writers who can condense important thoughts or information into quick reads.
Also, God Bless good editors who have this talent and help these writers achieve this goal. But where are all these editors? They’ve been let go … because of real inflation and real (self-inflicted) carnage in newsrooms … So, as another aside, everything ultimately ties all together.