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FUF: Dead Bloggers, the Olympics, Jaywalkers...
We follow up on a few burning questions that came up this week. Timothy Noah, senior writer at Slate, looks into the dying bloggers.. We take a look at just what the precedent is for US Presidents at the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. A primer on jaywalking from Peter Norton, assistant professor in Science and Technology at the University of Virginia and author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. And we finally put our nap strategies segment to bed by offering our napping tips.
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Comments
Bloggers are humans; humans die.
Dead tree media sour grapes?
I read the NYT piece, and while it was a bit of style-section piffle, the point it made and which is being completely overrun by the guest, is that those who employ bloggers tend to pay them poorly and work them mercilessly. While it might not kill you, it's not healthy.
Don't worry Brian, no one's gonna fool us. We all know you have 43 sons and 12 daughters and 4 dogs. You're safe with us.
re: presidents attending olympic opening ceremonies: the "in another country" part was kind of the point, wasn't it?
A draw? Opening the games in one's own country clearly is not what the Chinese are talking about.
Funny that should come up, It was my recollection that no US presidents ever attended Olympic games, at least in my life time except maybe Reagan at the LA games.
Allowing "anonymous" contributions IS unusual, but it doesn't mean we don't have change logs, talk pages etc. This is a difficult balancing act that is on the whole successful. You have two sons.
From your 'pedia page page hist.
-Richard
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==Biography==
==Biography==
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with his wife and thirty-seven sons.
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with his wife and two sons.
==The Brian Lehrer Show==
==The Brian Lehrer Show==
Hi Brian,
I thought Jay-Walking was that occasional TV stroll that viewers would take with Mr Leno, as he wandered out in Hollywood streets, to plumb the depths of American ignorance...
Some 40 or so years ago my husband spent a night in jail in Flagstaff Arizona for jaywalking. The police were using the ordinance to "clean up the streets" and held all kinds of hippy types, drunks and other assorted blights on the community for an entire night in a holding cell for the offense of jaywalking. He eventually paid a fine and continued on to Mexico with his friend.
that guy laffed waaaayyyy too much at a joke that wasn't funny
I got a jaywalking ticket 3 years ago, in Oakland, CA for jaywalking- in front of a police car... I was so ticked off that he spent the time to chastise me and give me a ticket, instead of going after the real bad guys. I told him off and refused to pay the ticket- think there might be a warrant out for me- hah! My excuse is that I grew up in a third world country where there are no sidewalks and everyone (animals included) walks in the streets. Actually, come to think of it, Atlanta lacked sidewalks when I lived there also...
I used to be an actor and I toured a great deal around the country.
I found that several cities in the US are VERY strict about jay-walking. I've never been ticketed myself, but I've seen coworkers ticketed for jay-walking in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Columbus, OH. My friend who was ticketed in Seattle had to go to traffic school!
As a perennial pedestrian myself, I try to pay more attention to traffic signals in other cities than I do in New York. Although, in Milwaukee, after several very near tragedies with me in the crosswalk, with a "walk" light in front of me, I found that jaywalking could be safer.
Here in Greenwich, CT between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm there are police officers stationed in the center of every intersection on the main drag, Greenwich Ave. There are even circles drawn in the street where they stand. The officers direct both the vehicular & pedestrian traffic and no one can proceed unless an officer allows you to do so. You have to wait until the cop has his or her back turned then dash across the street.
The recent case in Atlanta isn't the worst police overreaction to jaywalking--when I was growing up in the MD suburbs, a cop actually shot a jaywalker in DC (sometime in the '70s, I think). To be "fair," the cop called out to the jaywalker to stop, & he kept walking...oh, & in case you hadn't guessed, he was black. I couldn't find the story by Googling, but I clearly remember when it was in the news.
These days what worries me is people who dial their cell phones while crossing the street, even at intersections. It'll be a lot worse when more people have the ones w/video capability!
I always thought the term jaywalking came into being because the path you would traverse not crossing at the corner at right angles is shaped like a J.
This thread is closed.
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