Thursday, December 07, 2006

Point/Counterpoint

Who wants to be an online columnist? Follow this simple recipe:

- Choose a one-sided issue that has drawn national attention

- Locate 3-5 unconnected facts that vaguely support the contrapositive

- Sprinkle the facts in an article against the overwhelming national view.

What a joke.


For the record, anything that is deemed a "state-of-the-art $13 million football training facility" means they went the extra mile to give each player their own personal hose to drink from during training camp, instead of poking holes spaced two feet apart in one hose. I remember going to see the Byrd Stadium renovation, and they were planning on raising $5M for weights.

1 comment:

Eric Z said...

Another big tactic of online columnists? The use of "people" or "some" to represent the supposed popular opinion of something. It's then easy to shoot down what "people" have said!

For instance...

"People have doubted for years whether Oakland could win a playoff series. As recently as this summer, people whispered that the A's are good, but not good enough...

Well, those people were wrong."

Who? What people? That is irresponsible.

It goes on in politics, too.

"Some have doubted Pelosi's leadership. Some has even quietly questioned her sexuality, saying a woman from San Francisco who wears Birkenstocks shouldn't represent the nation. But the first few days have those same people shaking their heads in amazement."

Again, who are these some people?

You'll see this in a lot of articles. And it's just terrible writing. Some have even said the writing is Walton-like: "hoooooorrrribllllllle"