Neil deMause

Today’s top Google News item. Copyediting is dead.

From today’s Washington Post political blog:

Republican leaders will soon be walking a tightrope when it comes to the looming spending debate.

But at least it looks like the public is on their side.

In addition to being a very difficult metaphor to picture (which side of the tightrope would that be, the top side?), it doesn’t even help make the authors’ point: If the Republicans are walking a tightrope between forcing Obama to make spending cuts and risking a government shutdown if a budget isn’t passed — which actually seems more like “playing chicken” than walking a rope, but never mind — then what is it that the public is supporting? Opposing raising the debt ceiling, according to poll numbers given in the article; but the GOP isn’t stopping the government from raising the debt ceiling, just demanding new spending cuts before it agrees to more debt.

So really, the public is on a different side of the rope. Good thing it has an infinite number of sides.

The Washington Post, transcribing a quote about the surveillance camera footage of the Tucson shooting:

Another law enforcement source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, said the footage shows the shooting “in grizzly detail.”

Omigod — it’s Sarah Palin’s fault after all!

Today’s PR email subject line of the day:

Many Teens Ignoring Parents’ Facebook Friend Requests

And as if having a press release headline that looks like it should be a fake Onion story teaser weren’t bad enough, it turns out that this is only a survey of Kaplan Test Prep students. So it’s statistically worthless.

Public relations professionals, John Lennon would like a word with you.

From yesterday’s New York Times, on New York City’s proposed new top education officer:

When it comes to education credentials, Shael Polakow-Suransky fills a lot of the holes in Cathleen P. Black’s résumé. He is a byproduct of a public school system…

Polakow-Suransky shouldn’t feel too bad, though — even if the Times thinks he was an unintended result of his public school, maybe he can have a future as a bioplastic.

Congratulations to Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News, who hit the Golden Typo in today’s column:

Smith was a speechwriter for George H.W. Bush in the White House, kept writing speeches for Bush 41 after that. He also has written books about baseball broadcasters, most notably “Voices of the Game.” He teaches Presidential Rhetoric and Pubic Speaking at the University of Rochester.

The jokes just write themselves…

Dunno if the copyediting staff at the New York Times is all suffering from fruitcake hangovers or what, but today was not their brightest hour. First off, a headline on the front of the B section teasing a sports story about a stunt cyclist who’s found YouTube fame reads “Peddle Jumper.” Which would be a fine enough pun on “puddle jumper,” except that spelled that way I kept wondering what he was selling.

Then, columnist Clyde Haberman had this to say about the decade just ending:

But first, let us briefly look back on the ’00s, a decade that in one respect ends exactly as it began: without a consensus on what we should call it. Plenty of names have been suggested over the years. The Oughts, the Naughts, the Naughties, the Zips, the Preteens, the Ohs and the Oh-Ohs are among the more familiar.

Some more familiar than others, certainly. While “ought” is an acceptable variant spelling of “aught,” the latter is used far more frequently than the former. Haberman ought to be more careful.

From an article today on a Wall Street Journal blog reporting on a New York Times story on how the rushed condo developments in Williamsburg, Brooklyn are already starting to fall apart:

The article points out that condo owners have a three-year statue of limitations for suing the developer or contractors for negligence.

Unfortunately, the statue was built with faulty concrete.

And just to prove I’ll bite the hand that feeds me, City Limits reports on a troubled building in Bushwick:

Unremarkable from the outside, a passer-by would have no reason to look twice at the modest structure with a red brick facade.

Inside of a passerby, of course, it’s too dark to read.

From an ABC News report on theories regarding the death of Mozart:

Buried in an unmarked grave, without a casket or his widow at the funeral, historians don’t know exactly what killed the 35-year-old musical genius Dec. 5, 1791.

Tip to historians: You might have an easier time doing research if you got out of the grave first.

From today’s Miami Herald:

“Our main industry is tourism,” [Miami Beach Mayor Matti Herrera] Bower said. “We can’t lose site of what is the engine that brings the money in.”

Presumably Mayor Bower was talking about “losing sight” of the importance of tourism, not fearing the loss of land. They say the first thing to go is the copy editing…